Academic program licensing agreement signed with University Medical Centre Ljubljana

SmartCella has signed an academic program licensing agreement with University Medical Centre Ljubljana (UMC Ljubljana), the national and regional leader in cardiovascular medicine in Slovenia. Under the agreement, UMC Ljubljana has the right to use the Extroducer® delivery platform in its early clinical research into cell-based regenerative therapy for advanced heart failure.

The agreement connects the Extroducer® with UMC Ljubljana’s Advanced Heart Failure and Transplantation Center, one of Europe’s established centers in the field, and with principal investigator Professor Gregor Poglajen, MD, PhD, Associate Professor at the University of Ljubljana. Professor Poglajen is a clinician-scientist in cardiac regenerative medicine and a member of the European Society of Cardiology, with a research track record in cell-based therapy for heart failure, including transendocardial cell delivery. The collaboration is intended to make the Extroducer® technology accessible for academic research and to address a key bottleneck in cardiac cell therapy: delivering the therapy to the target tissue in the heart.

Professor Gregor Poglajen, Advanced Heart Failure and Transplantation Center, UMC Ljubljana, comments: “Delivering regenerative therapy to the target myocardium, without open surgery, has been a persistent challenge in our field. With the Extroducer®, we can address that directly in our research which is a meaningful step toward better treatment options for patients with advanced heart failure.”

SmartCella’s CEO Niklas Prager comments: “Engaging with academia is an important and strategic matter to us. We are proud to support Professor Poglajen’s research into regenerative therapy for advanced heart failure. Our partnership reflects our ambition to make the Extroducer® broadly accessible, including to leading academic centers advancing cell-based approaches to heart failure.”

About the Extroducer®

The Extroducer® is SmartCella’s modality-agnostic endovascular delivery platform designed for localized drug delivery to hard-to-reach organs, tumors, and tissues. It enables minimally invasive, catheter-based delivery using arteries and veins as natural access routes for localized injection of therapeutic agents into target tissues. The Extroducer® is FDA 510(k)-cleared for use in the peripheral vasculature to inject diagnostic and therapeutic solutions into the perivascular space. It is currently in clinical investigation for additional indications.