accelerating drug, device & gene therapy development
Delivering Better Models to Understand Human Disease
Surrogen is providing better research models that replicate human diseases in pigs—animals that are more similar to humans than commonly-used mice by nearly every measure.
Our expertise in molecular and cellular biology, genomics, embryology, animal husbandry, and production enable disease researchers and therapeutic developers to answer questions that other models cannot.
Surrogen pigs enable a more thorough examination of the onset and progression of human disease, as well as the safety and efficacy of therapeutics designed to treat it.
FACING THE FACTS
focusing our work
To combat those realities, Surrogen is focused on…
our models
The Pig Model Advantage
Surrogen’s gene-edited pigs provide an unrivaled advantaged over traditional animal models. Pigs are and/or have:
- One of the closest non-primate species to humans
- Organ systems highly similar to humans
- Similar anatomy, physiology and size to human patients
- Well-established for the use in preclinical research
- Fast gestation periods (three months, three weeks, three days)
our tools
The Genome Editing Advantage
Scientists have identified more than 10,000 single gene mutations that play roles in diseases and medical conditions. Surrogen leverages its world-leading expertise in the use of gene editing tools like transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and others to design optimized swine models for a wide array of disease-causing mutations identical to those in human patients. Thus, we are creating disease models in swine that are genetically and phenotypically similar to humans.
our impact
Surrogen could give pre-clinical R&D programs:
increased speed to market
reduced failure rates
customizable options
opportunities to make better products
means to evaluate diseases with small patient populations
ways to examine interventions systematically
ability to test for safety and efficacy before patient trials
identify and validate disease and therapeutic biomarkers
surrogen pipeline
Surrogen has the following projects currently in development:
- Cancer: Brain; Liver; Colorectal; Ovarian; Inherited Tumor Disposition
- Rare Disease: Neurofibromatosis Type 1 & 2; Alpha-1-Antitrypsin Deficiency; Osteogenesis Imperfecta; Microvillus Inclusion Disease
- Cardiovascular Diseases: Atherosclerosis; Dilated Cardiomyopathy
- Congenital Conditions: Heart Disease
- Hereditary & Neonatal Diseases: Polycystic Kidney Disease
- Lifestyle Diseases: Type 1 & Type 2 Diabetes; Metabolic Syndrome; Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH); Atherosclerosis
- Neurodegenerative Diseases: Alzheimer’s Disease
- Cell and Gene Therapy Models