Femtechs take on women’s health

Zurich-based MUVON Therapeutics is taking a different approach to regenerating the urinary sphincter: tissue engineering. Muvon was spun out of research at the University of Zurich, where researchers spent over a decade perfecting the cultivation of muscle cells. The process begins with a small muscle biopsy from the lower leg, which is then digested in the lab to isolate muscle precursor cells. Those cells are grown until there are enough to inject into the muscle surrounding the urethra. 

CEO Deana Mohr was keen to point out that this is not an expensive cell therapy: “We are really doing regenerative medicine designed for scale,” she says, with no genetic modifications of the cells, which allows easy automation of the femtech’s production process. This brings down the cost compared to, say, CAR-T cell therapy, with its half a million dollar price tag.