BME Seminar Series (Zoom): Product Development & ViaCyte, Inc. – Racing Towards a Cure for Type I Diabetes

Zoom (link below)
Janahan Arulmoli, Ph.D.

Associate Director of Product Engineering
ViaCyte

Zoomhttps://uci.zoom.us/j/97629106431 Password: 198Sem

Abstract: ViaCyte, Inc. is a privately held clinical-stage regenerative medicine company headquartered in San Diego, California, developing novel cell replacement therapies based on two major technological advances: cell replacement therapies derived from pluripotent stem cells and medical device systems for cell encapsulation and implantation. ViaCyte has the opportunity to use these technologies to address critical human diseases and disorders that can potentially be treated by replacing lost or malfunctioning cells or proteins. This requires intensive expertise from the stem cell biology, implantable medical device and surgical delivery perspectives. The combination product engineering group at ViaCyte uses design control methodology to advance new product iterations efficiently from the research stage through the product development life cycle into the clinical trial phase. ViaCyte’s first product candidates are being developed as potential long-term treatments for patients with Type 1 diabetes to achieve glucose control targets and reduce the risk of hypoglycemia and diabetes-related complications. In order to accelerate and expand the company’s efforts, ViaCyte has established collaborative partnerships with leading companies, including CRISPR Therapeutics and W.L. Gore & Associates. These partnerships aim to advance ViaCyte’s product platform by implementing CRISPR-Cas9-based immune-evasive cell technology and novel materials/structures to attenuate the host immune response, respectively.

Bio: Janahan Arulmoli is the associate director of product engineering at ViaCyte, Inc., where he leads the combination product engineering group developing cell replacement therapies for Type I diabetes. He has over 13 years of implantable device and combination product R&D, regulatory, and operational experience within the biotechnology industry and academia. Arulmoli’s team at ViaCyte focuses on defining and implementing the roadmap to take biomedical research from ideation to benchtop to clinical trials in the quest to achieve insulin independence for diabetic patients. This includes oversight of medical product development, GMP manufacturing process development and surgical procedure engineering. He received his B.S. in chemical engineering from UCSD and his M.S. and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from UCI, where he worked in Lisa Flanagan’s lab investigating tissue engineering and biomaterial-based approaches for central nervous system tissue repair. He leverages a highly interdisciplinary technical background combining engineering and stem cell biology to propel development of novel therapeutics that address high unmet clinical needs.