BlueRock Therapeutics

BlueRock Therapeutics is a biotechnology company headquartered in New York City, New York that was founded by Lorenz Studer, Gordon Keller, Michael Laflamme, and Viviane Tabar.

BlueRock is using their Cell plus Gene platform to produce cell therapies for replacement of damaged or degenerated tissue. BlueRock’s neurology pipeline focuses on Parkinson’s Disease and engineering microglia for other neurological disorders. Their cardiology pipeline includes cell therapy for heart failure using cardiomyocytes. For autoimmune diseases, the company is designing macrophage cell therapies. BlueRock is using ex vivo engineering to enable cells to produce enzymes, antibodies and other proteins with therapeutic benefit.

Cell therapy candidates are based on induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cell technology. The company’s approach is based on iPSC intellectual property invented by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan and licensed from iPS Academia Japan, which manages iPSC IP.

BlueRock has partnerships with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Toronto-based Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM).

In December 2018, BlueRock partnered with The McEwen Stem Cell Institute at the University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District. A new pilot Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) facility will open in 2019.

On December 12, 2016 BlueRock Therapeutics completed their series A funding round with $225 million in funding from Versant Ventures and Bayer AG.