Full Press Release Details
Subsidiary Asterias Biotherapeutics Announces Investment by CEO
Pedro Lichtinger purchases 200,000 shares of Asterias Series B common
ALAMEDA, Calif. & MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 17,
2014--BioTime, Inc. (NYSE MKT: BTX) today announced that on June 12,
2014, Pedro Lichtinger, President and Chief Executive Officer of its
subsidiary Asterias Biotherapeutics, Inc. ("Asterias") purchased from
Asterias 200,000 shares of Asterias Series B common stock at a price of
$2.34 per share. The funds raised by this purchase will be used in part
to finance Asterias' therapeutic product development programs, which are
based on the potential of using human embryonic stem (hES) cells to
create innovative new therapies for diseases and conditions for which
effective treatments are not presently available.
"The Board of Directors of Asterias is honored that Pedro elected to
join Asterias as CEO and is very pleased that he also chose to make a
significant financial commitment to the company," said Alfred D.
Kingsley, Chairman of the Asterias Board of Directors. "With Pedro at
the helm, Asterias is focused on its efforts to develop and
commercialize therapies that have the potential to treat patients with
serious unmet medical needs. In particular, Pedro will lead Asterias
through the process of advancing its lead clinical-stage programs,
AST-OPC1 for the treatment of spinal cord injury and the AST-VAC2
allogeneic dendritic cell cancer immunotherapy platform."
"I believe in Asterias' technology, its therapeutic programs, and its
talented employees and am committed to making the company a success,"
remarked Mr. Lichtinger. "My efforts as the company's CEO will focus on
developing innovative therapies for critically ill and chronically ill
patients, and creating significant value over time for Asterias
Asterias Biotherapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on the
emerging field of regenerative medicine. Our core technologies center on
stem cells capable of becoming all of the cell types in the human body,
a property called pluripotency. We plan to develop therapies based on
pluripotent stem cells to treat diseases or injuries in a variety of
medical fields, with an initial focus on the therapeutic applications of
oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (AST-OPC1) and antigen-presenting
dendritic cells (AST-VAC1 and AST-VAC2) for the fields of neurology and
oncology respectively. AST-OPC1 was tested for treatment of spinal cord
injury in the world's first Phase 1 clinical trial using human embryonic
stem cell-derived cells. We plan to seek FDA clearance to reinitiate
clinical testing of AST-OPC1 in spinal cord injury this year, and are
also evaluating its function in nonclinical models of multiple sclerosis
and stroke. AST-VAC1 and AST-VAC2 are dendritic cell-based vaccines
designed to immunize cancer patients against telomerase, a protein
abnormally expressed in over 95% of human cancer types. AST-VAC2 differs
from AST-VAC1 in that the dendritic cells presenting telomerase to the
immune system are produced from human embryonic stem cells instead of
being derived from human blood.
In October of 2013, Asterias acquired the cell therapy assets of Geron
Corporation. These assets included INDs for the clinical stage AST-OPC1
and AST-VAC1 programs, banks of cGMP-manufactured AST-OPC1 drug product,
cGMP master and working cell banks of human embryonic stem cells, over
400 patents and patent applications filed worldwide including broad
issued claims to fundamental platform technologies for the scalable
growth of pluripotent stem cells and compositions of matter for several
hESC-derived therapeutic cell types, research cell banks, customized
reagents and equipment, and various assets relating to the AST-VAC2
program and preclinical programs in cardiology and orthopedics.
Asterias is a member of the BioTime family of companies.
Additional information about Asterias can be found at www.asteriasbiotherapeutics.com.
BioTime is a biotechnology company engaged in research and product
development in the field of regenerative medicine. Regenerative medicine
refers to therapies based on stem cell technology that are designed to
rebuild cell and tissue function lost due to degenerative disease or
injury. BioTime's focus is on pluripotent stem cell technology based on
human embryonic stem ("hES") cells and induced pluripotent stem ("iPS")
cells. hES and iPS cells provide a means of manufacturing every cell
type in the human body and therefore show considerable promise for the
development of a number of new therapeutic products. BioTime's
therapeutic and research products include a wide array of proprietary PureStem
progenitors, HyStem hydrogels, culture media,
and differentiation kits. BioTime is developing Renevia (a HyStem
product) as a biocompatible, implantable hyaluronan and collagen-based
matrix for cell delivery in human clinical applications, and is planning
to initiate a pivotal clinical trial around Renevia , in 2014. In
addition, BioTime has developed Hextend , a blood
plasma volume expander for use in surgery, emergency trauma treatment
and other applications. Hextend is manufactured
and distributed in the U.S. by Hospira, Inc. and in South Korea by CJ
HealthCare Corporation, under exclusive licensing agreements.
BioTime is also developing stem cell and other products for research,
therapeutic, and diagnostic use through its subsidiaries:
Asterias Biotherapeutics, Inc. is developing pluripotent
stem-cell based therapies in neurology and oncology, including
AST-OPC1 oligodendrocyte progenitor cells in spinal cord injury,
multiple sclerosis and stroke, and AST-VAC2, an allogeneic dendritic
cell-based cancer vaccine.
BioTime Asia, Ltd., a Hong Kong company, may offer and sell
products for research use for BioTime's ESI BIO Division.
Cell Cure Neurosciences Ltd. is an Israel-based biotechnology
company focused on developing stem cell-based therapies for retinal
and neurological disorders, including the development of retinal
pigment epithelial cells for the treatment of macular degeneration,
and treatments for multiple sclerosis.
ESI BIO is the research and product marketing division of
BioTime, providing stem cell researchers with products and
technologies to enable them to translate their work into the clinic,
including PureStem progenitors and HyStem
LifeMap Sciences, Inc. markets, sells, and distributes GeneCards ,
the leading human gene database, as part of an integrated database
suite that also includes the LifeMap Discovery
database of embryonic development, stem cell research, and