Kadimastem is a biotechnology company focused on the industrial development and commercialization of human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-based products. At Kadimastem, the ES cell technology is used to produce specialized human cells and tissues for two major types of medical applications:

1) for therapeutic aims in regenerative medicine, to repair tissues and organs affected by diseases, such as implanting insulin-secreting pancreatic islet cells as a treatment for insulin-dependent diabetes,

2) for drug-screening platforms using ESC-derived human specialized cells and tissues as in vitro functional assays for discovering novel therapeutic drugs.

Derivation of specialized human tissues from embryonic stem cells has several advantages which are exploited at Kadimastem: 1) capacity for unlimited expansion of undifferentiated hESC, allowing to reach industrial scale; 2) ability to differentiate into nearly anyone of the various types of cells and tissues present in the human body, a characteristic which is found only to a limited extent in other stem cells.

Some of the original hESC differentiation technologies were developed in the laboratory of Prof. Michel Revel at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Rehovot, Israel) and Kadimastem has an exclusive license from Yeda R&D for their commercialization. Kadimastem holds an exclusive worldwide license from the Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO,  Jerusalem) for using hESC lines for the tratment of diabetes. Some of these hESC lines  that were developed by Prof. Benjamin Reubinoff (Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel) are of clinical grade. The license from HMO allows Kadimastem to produce endoderm tissues, including the pancreatic islet cells that could cure diabetes, or liver cells for applications in drug discovery and also in cell therapy as a replacement for liver transplants. The company has also a license for several additional hESC lines from the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem to use in its Drug Discovery program.

Kadimastem is developing these technologies in its state of the art 1,000 m² facilities in the Weizmann Science Park (Ness Ziona, Israel), for controlled production under best industrial practices. The Research and Development is headed by Prof. Michel Revel (Chief Scientist) and Dr Arik Hasson (Vice President of R&D). The company applies its technology for 1) large-scale expansion of pluripotent undifferentiated embryonic stem cells and 2) their subsequent differentiation into specialized human cells and tissues. It currently focuses on two major projects aimed at distinct projects for Drug discovery or for Therapeutic implantations:

1) Producing human oligodendrocyte precursor cells capable of repairing the myelin covers around nerves, which are destroyed in Multiple Sclerosis, spinal cord injury and other neurological diseases (under license from Yeda, the technology transfer office of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel).

2) Differentiating pancreatic islet cells secreting insulin and other hormones essential for maintaining the blood glucose level. The insulin-secreting islet beta cells are destroyed in juvenile diabetes and are often dysfunctional in type II diabetes.