Full Press Release Details
Subsidiary OncoCyte Corporation Appoints William Annett to Its Board of
ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--January 12, 2015--BioTime, Inc. (NYSE
MKT:BTX) and its subsidiary OncoCyte Corporation today announced that
William Annett has been appointed to OncoCyte's Board of Directors. Mr.
Annett has extensive experience within the biotechnology and diagnostics
industry, having held the position of Chief Executive Officer at six
organizations as well as having experience in senior management
positions at Genentech, Accenture and other companies. Mr. Annett holds
an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.
Mr. Annett's diagnostics experience includes serving as CEO at BioFX
Laboratories, which created innovative products in the in vitro
diagnostics field and was successfully sold to a large life sciences
company. He founded and led Corra Life Sciences, a prenatal diagnostics
company that worked with a consortium of universities to develop blood
tests for the major diseases of pregnancy. Mr. Annett also founded
Western Canada Water, a consumer products company, and led it for six
years as CEO during which time it became a NASDAQ-traded public company.
At Genentech he served in a number of roles and led both the Commercial
Strategy and Project Finance groups. In Project Finance he was
responsible for supporting all development pipeline products with a $1
billion budget and thirty-five product teams, running over two hundred
clinical trials. He also led one of Genentech's largest change
initiatives, a $150 million/450 person effort that transformed that
organization's commercial systems and business processes.
Most recently, Mr. Annett was a Managing Director at Accenture, where he
founded, built and led Accenture's west coast Life Sciences practice,
with sales, marketing, and delivery responsibility for all lines of
business and all clients in the territory.
"With its innovative cancer diagnostic tests completing large clinical
studies, OncoCyte is positioned to enter the commercialization phase of
its diagnostics as early as this year. The key to being the industry
leader in this field will be combining OncoCyte's novel technology with
a solid development and commercialization strategy. I look forward to
working with OncoCyte during this critical development period," said Mr.
"Bill's extensive experience in diagnostics and commercialization will
bring significant value to OncoCyte in the near term," said Joseph
Wagner, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of OncoCyte. "In particular, his
input will be critical as we complete analysis and publication of
clinical data from our studies in lung, bladder and breast cancer and
turn our efforts toward the strategic commercialization of these
products. In the longer term, Bill's experience in finance and
private-to-public corporate transactions will be of great value as
OncoCyte continues to advance."
About OncoCyte Corporation
OncoCyte, a majority-owned subsidiary of BioTime, Inc., is developing
novel products for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer in order to
improve the quality and length of life of cancer patients. Based on
large unmet need, market size, and data generated thus far from patient
sample screening, OncoCyte is initially focusing its efforts on
developing PanC-Dx diagnostic products for use in detecting
breast, bladder, and lung cancers. PanC-Dx is a class of
non-invasive cancer diagnostics based on a proprietary set of cancer
markers characterized, in part, by broad gene expression patterns in
numerous cancer types. The PanC-Dx biomarkers were discovered as
a result of ongoing research within OncoCyte and BioTime on the gene
expression patterns associated with embryonic development. This research
has demonstrated that many of the same genes associated with normal
growth during embryonic development are abnormally reactivated by cancer
cells. These genes regulate such diverse processes as cell
proliferation, cell migration and blood vessel formation. Many of these
genes have not been previously associated with cancer. Moreover,
expression of a large subset of these genes is conserved across numerous
cancer types (e.g. cancers of the breast, colon, ovaries, etc.),
suggesting these genes may control fundamental processes during cancer
growth and progression. In addition to their potential value in
developing diagnostic biomarkers, an understanding of the pattern of
expression of these genes may also enable the development of powerful
new cancer therapeutics that target rapidly proliferating cancer cells.
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. Renevia (a HyStem
product), is now in a pivotal trial in Europe as a biocompatible,
implantable hyaluronan and collagen-based matrix for cell delivery in
the treatment of HIV-related lipoatrophy. 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. Asterias Series A common stock is traded on the NYSE
MKT under the symbol AST.
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