Investing.com -- Sana Biotechnology shares traded roughly 13% higher in after hours on Monday following the announcement of a strategic collaboration with Mayo Clinic to advance development of SC451, an investigational pancreatic islet cell therapy for type 1 diabetes.

SC451 is designed to allow a single administration of pancreatic islet cells to support glucose control without ongoing insulin therapy or immunosuppression for patients with type 1 diabetes. The therapy uses Sana's hypoimmune platform technology to modify pancreatic islets.

The collaboration will leverage Mayo Clinic's expertise to accelerate development, validation, and standardization of protocols for SC451. Areas of focus include optimizing workflows for product handling and delivery, refining surgical techniques, standardizing post-treatment management, and advancing clinical trial design with biomarker identification for patient selection and monitoring.

Mayo Clinic will make an equity investment in Sana Biotechnology as part of the agreement and has the option to make an additional equity investment under the terms of the collaboration.

Steve Harr, Sana President and Chief Executive Officer, said the company is aiming to start a clinical trial for SC451 this year. Recently presented data showed that transplanted pancreatic islets modified with Sana's hypoimmune platform technology survived and functioned without immunosuppression for over a year in a patient with type 1 diabetes.

Vijay Shah, Mr. and Mrs. Ronald F. Kinney Executive Dean of Research at Mayo Clinic, said the collaboration brings together expertise in cell therapy development and transplant immunology to evaluate this investigational approach for patients living with type 1 diabetes.