Cascia is a technology-enabled healthcare servicescompany
headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. We conduct research on the use
of mesenchymal stem cell therapeutics for regenerative medicine
applications.
Cascia
Cascia is a technology-enabled healthcare servicescompany
headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. We conduct research on the use
of mesenchymal stem cell therapeutics for regenerative medicine
applications.
Cascia's cellular therapies are based on autologous stem cells, which are cells obtained from the patient that is undergoing treatment. We do not use embryonic, fetal, or animal material in any of our therapies.
We establish cell processing laboratories at the hospitals where the patients are to be treated, and we prepare our therapeutics for immediate transplant back into the patient. Each dose of cells is prepared to prescription based on the individual patient's health status including their electrolyte values, hematological parameters, coagulation proteins, disease state, and other relevant factors. All preparation takes place according to strict protocols by our technicians who have each received special training. Preparation methodology quality controls are extensively documented.
Unique among the cellular processing world, Cascia assigns a highly-trained medical scientist to each procedure. Our medical scientists have a PhD in a life science field, such as biochemistry, and have undergone additional company-sponsored training in therapeutic use of stem cells. The scientists provide an expert level of knowledge on cell therapies to ensure that the treating physician or surgeon obtains the best possible result for their patient, and to execute certain preparatory steps during the procedure.
We conduct research through company-owned facilities where we focus on several activities.
Our hospital-based processing laboratories are central to production of our cellular therapeutics. Controlling the preparation, processing, and quality controls related to our cellular therapeutics is a complex task that integratea the operation of numerous biomedical analyzers and our production equipment. We maintain an experimental laboratory that is substantially identical to our hospital-based processing centers for the purpose of training, evaluating different materials and instruments, and experimenting with process improvements. As process improvements are validated and documented at the pilot facility, they can be rolled out to the hospital laboratories after transition training is completed.
Information processing is as important to our business as our scientific experiments. While it is relatively simple to acquire and operate much of our scientific instrumentation, it is another level of effort to integrate all the devices to operate as a unified system, both for preparing cellular therapeutics and for conducting research. A key part of our strategy is to maximize use of IoT Technology (Internet of Things) which allows IoT enabled devices to communicate across the Internet for the purposes of scheduling necessary maintenance, monitoring performance, tracking calibration of instrumentation to standards, monitoring temperature excursion of refrigerators and freezer storing critical material, and to conduct remote supervision of quality control.
3D bioprinting is an extension of the current initiatives in additive manufacturing technologies, but in our case we are using biocompatible materials to create implants tailored for the patient we are treating and then infusing them with living stem cells. 4D bioprinting integrates with stimuli-responsive biomaterials to create dynamic constructs capable of adapting their shape, properties, or bioactivity in response to specific cues. Stem cells respond to these cues to exert a specific biological effect.
Biophotonics studies the interaction of electromagentic radiation, mostly light waves in the UV, visibile, and IR portions of the spectrum, with cells, tissues, biomolecules, and biologically compatible materials. Introducing laser optics into our processes, especially those related to our bioprinting efforts, allows us to create advanced bioimplants impregnated with living cells.
All our processes are all highly automated, integrating computerized workflows with the instrumentation we use. As a batch of cells is produced we use AI features incorporated in many modern instruments to perform image recognition, use voice commands to interact with our systems without the need to touch a keyboard, and can leverage the intelligence of our bioprinting system to design custom implants based on imaging data collected from MRI and CAT scans of the patients. All of this enables us to maintain the highest level of quality control while customizing our therapeutics in real time.