Berlin Gets It Right: Muscle Regeneration in the Lab

Berlin, October 26, 2026 – The human body has more than 650 muscles.  If that immediately brings to mind people pumping iron at the gym or professional athletes in peak physical condition, it might be time to slow down a little – to stick with the sports analogy.  After all, muscles aren’t just for athletes. We all rely on them every day to walk, stand, sit, breathe and speak. The heart uses cardiac muscle tissue to pump blood throughout the body,  while smooth muscle is found in places such as the airways and digestive tract. Skeletal muscles, meanwhile, are attached to bones by tendons. Muscle function is essential to everyday life – something Berlin-based startup MyoPax GmbH knows well. According to the company,  more than 30 million people in the European Union and the United States live with serious muscle disorders. These conditions often cause substantial loss of muscle function and, with it, a significant decline in quality of life.  Everyday activities can become increasingly difficult, and some people may even have to give up their jobs.  Treatment is also frequently limited to managing symptoms and providing supportive care, such as mechanical ventilation, physical therapy or surgery. To offer patients new treatment options, MyoPax is developing regenerative therapies for localized muscle defects, acute muscle loss and inherited muscular dystrophies.

At the heart of the company’s technology is a patented process for isolating and culturing regenerative muscle stem cells.  This process produces large populations of highly purified muscle stem cells known as PHSats (primary human satellite cell-derived muscle stem cells).  These cells have regenerative properties and have been shown to form new muscle tissue in preclinical studies.  For patients with localized muscle defects, the proposed treatment involves extracting muscle stem cells from their own bodies,  expanding them in the lab and then transplanting them back into the patient.  The goal is to regenerate damaged muscle tissue.  MyoPax uses the PHSat cell phenotype as the basis for developing new cell therapies.

In addition to its approach to treating localized muscle defects, MyoPax is developing two further therapeutic approaches.  The first, called Satori, is based on PHSat technology and uses patients’ own cells.  The second uses genetically optimized human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) as standardized donor cells. This approach is intended to provide an off-the-shelf cell therapy that could eventually be used to regenerate damaged muscle tissue, including in patients with acute muscle disorders. The company's third therapeutic platform, Satgeno,  targets inherited muscular dystrophies. This approach involves correcting the genetic mutations responsible for the disease. The genetically corrected muscle stem cells are then expanded using PHSat technology and are intended to be injected into patients.  The goal is to generate healthy muscle tissue and achieve lasting improvements in both muscle structure and function.

MyoPax was founded in 2022 as a spinout fromCharité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), part of the Helmholtz Association Its scientific co-founders include physician Verena Schöwel-Wolf and neurologist Professor Simone Spuler. The company’s muscle stem cell technology builds on years of research by Spuler and her Myology research group at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC). Preparations are currently underway for the first clinical testing of one of MyoPax’s therapeutic approaches in humans. 

In 2026, MyoPax’s innovative work earned the founders and their team a Deep Tech Award from the Berlin Senate Department for Economic Affairss, Energy and Public Enterprises. The award recognizes Berlin-based companies developing advanced and transformative technologies that turn scientific research into solutions with tangible benefits for society.  For MyoPax, the recognition highlights the promise of its technology and its potential to open up new treatment options for people living with muscle disorders.