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Category Archives: Stem Cells

BioTime Buys Geron’s Stem Cell Assets, Including hESC Clinical Trial

Geron Corp., which pioneered the first
clinical trial of an hESC therapy, today sold its stem cell
business to another San Francisco Bay Area firm whose two top
executives were once CEOs at Geron.

Michael West
BioTime photo

The total value of the complex deal was
not clear from the public statements released by Geron and the
acquiring firm, BioTime, Inc., of Alameda, but an unidentified
outside investor is adding $10 million to transaction.

In a telephone interview this evening,
Michael West, CEO of BioTime, said that as a result of the deal his
firm will hold 600 patents and patent applications involving stem
cells. He said the aggregation should help in attracting financial
interest in the firm and its efforts.

West founded Geron in 1990. BioTime
Acquistion Corp., the BioTime subsidiary that is picking up the Geron
assets, is headed by Tom Okarma, who was Geron's CEO from 1999 to
2011.

After Okarma left the firm in 2011,
Geron abruptly jettisoned its stem cell business along with the
clinical trial. Geron has been looking since then for a buyer for the
assets.

Tom Okarma
Geron photo

Only a few months prior to the Geron
decision in 2011, the California stem cell agency had signed a $25
million loan agreement with Geron to support the clinical trial. The
company paid back with interest the amount of the loan that it had
received.

Information from the two companies did
not specify whether BioTime will begin seeking additional
participants in the clinical trial. Nor did BioTime indicate whether
it would seek additional funding from the state stem cell agency.

However, West said during the telephone
interview that he has an “open mind” about working with CIRM.
Last year, agency officials indicated an interest in continuing to
support the clinical trial. West said BioTime had already hired some
employees that were laid off by Geron, including its patent attorney.
He said that he hoped to reassemble at least part of Geron's now
scattered stem cell team.

According to the Geron press release,
when the deal is officially concluded in September, “it is
anticipated that Geron stockholders would own approximately 21% of
BAC, BioTime would own approximately 72%, and a private investor
would own approximately 7% after an additional $5 million investment
in BAC.”

For its new operations, BioTime has
leased space in Menlo Park that Geron once used for its stem cell
business.

Both firms are publicy traded.
BioTime's stock price closed at $3.45 today and had a 52-week high of
$6.35 and a low of $2.67. Geron closed at $1.60 and had a 52-week
high of $2.99 and a low of 91 cents.

Here is a link to an article in the San
Francisco Business Times about the deal. Here are links to the
BioTime press release, a BioTime FAQ and the Geron press release.

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/TBbR-z7OPWc/biotime-buys-gerons-stem-cell-assets.html

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BioTime Buys Geron's Stem Cell Assets, Including hESC Clinical Trial

Michael West
BioTime photo

West founded Geron in 1990. BioTime
Acquistion Corp., the BioTime subsidiary that is picking up the Geron
assets, is headed by Tom Okarma, who was Geron's CEO from 1999 to
2011.

After Okarma left the firm in 2011,
Geron abruptly jettisoned its stem cell business along with the
clinical trial. Geron has been looking since then for a buyer for the
assets.

Tom Okarma
Geron photo

For its new operations, BioTime has
leased space in Menlo Park that Geron once used for its stem cell
business.

Here is a link to an article in the San
Francisco Business Times about the deal. Here are links to the
BioTime press release, a BioTime FAQ and the Geron press release.

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/TBbR-z7OPWc/biotime-buys-gerons-stem-cell-assets.html

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BioTime Stock Jumps 22 Percent in Two Days in Wake of Geron Deal

The stock price of Biotime, Inc., of
Alameda, Ca., shot up more than 12 percent today following the
announcement of a complex deal that will give it the stem cell assets
of Geron Corp., the first firm to launch a clinical trial for an hESC
therapy.

Geron stock price Jan. 2-8
Google chart

BioTime stock closed at $3.88, up
43 cents or 12.46 percent. That followed a 9.6 percent gain
yesterday. Geron's stock closed at $1.63, up three cents or 1.9
percent.

News coverage of the deal was light
with our tracking showing only one story so far today on The Scientist magazine web site.

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/mQRu0qUrqwM/biotime-stock-jumps-22-percent-in-two.html

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Reverse Engineering Grandpa

Stem cells are rarely the subject of
cartoons, but one popped last week from Bizarro.

The cartoon appeared in the San
Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere, including the
Bizarro web site. The image was of a petri dish in a lab with
tiny maternal speck giving parental advice to an even tinier speck:
"You can be anything you want to be when you grow up."
Artist Dan Piraro said the cartoon was his favorite of the
week because of its “strangeness.”

Piraro wrote on his blog,

“To use a term common in the
vernacular of geneticists, it’s creepy cool.”

The cartoon did not differentiate
between embryonic and adult cells, much less reprogrammed adult
cells. Using reprogrammed cells in the cartoon would have been even
creepier and cooler, giving new meaning to the 1947 song, “I Am My
Own Grandpa.”(See here and here.)

(A nod to "Bob" for calling our attention to the cartoon.)

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/gXXLRtG2Sx4/reverse-engineering-grandpa.html

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San Diego Newspaper Calls for Major Changes at California Stem Cell Agency

The San Diego U-T today ran an
editorial that was headlined “Stem cell research institute must fix itself.”

The editorial was written in response
to findings by the Institute of Medicine that the $3 billion
California stem cell should make sweeping changes to deal with issues
ranging from conflicts of interest to management structure.

The San Diego U-T editorial came as part of
a unanimous reaction so far from California newspapers.

The San Diego paper said,

“We hope we
are wrong in thinking that, given the number of times the same
criticisms of CIRM have come up over the past seven years, the agency
doesn’t really take them seriously.

“If that is
the agency’s attitude, it could well be a fatal error. CIRM has
enough money remaining from the original $3 billion to continue
awarding research grants for another four years. But it will either
have to go back to California voters in 2014 or 2016 for another bond
issue to continue its operations or find a different source of
funding.

“Whichever
CIRM decides, whoever is asked to foot the bill, either taxpayers or
the private sector will demand transparency and accountability. We
hope CIRM can demonstrate it.”

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/aZWF_3ieMCY/san-diego-newspaper-calls-for-major.html

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Exploring the Straw Man Argument Against IOM Reforms at California Stem Cell Agency

Constitutional objections to some of
the Institute of Medicine's sweeping recommendations for changes at
the $3 billion California stem cell agency amount to little more than
a straw man, at least based on a legal memo produced earlier by the
agency.

The legal objections to structural reforms at the
agency were initially advanced in 2009 when the stem cell agency was
fighting an unwelcome analysis of its activities by the state's good
government agency, the Little Hoover Commission. The objections were
voiced again at a meeting earlier this month by some governing board
members, particularly Sherry Lansing, who is also chairwoman of the
University of California regents. Her comments came within minutes of
the start of the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) presentation to the
board.

She said directors' hands “are tied”
because of requirements in Proposition 71, the ballot initiative that
created the stem cell agency, which is formally known as the
California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM). While Lansing
did not elaborate, some of the initiative is written into the state
constitution, which can only be amended by a vote of the people.
However, Proposition 71 can also be amended by a 70 percent vote of
each house of the Legislature and the signature of the governor,
which is no small task to achieve.

The 2009 legal memo (see the full text
below) dealt with the recommendations of the Little Hoover
Commission, some of which were cited and echoed by the IOM. The legal
memo contended that the legislature was barred from making major
changes in the structure of the stem cell agency governing board
because the changes supposedly would not “enhance the ability of
the (agency) to further the purposes of the grant and loan programs.”
The argument was that only the people could make “non-enhancing”
changes. The vague “enhancement” requirement was written into
Proposition 71 by its authors, one of whom is James Harrison, the
outside counsel to the board, who was also the lead author on the
2009 memo. Harrison is revisiting the supposed constitutional issues in the wake of the IOM study.

However, the objections cited in his earlier memo are dubious and easily overcome. The meaning of “enhance” is
so vague as to permit wide interpretations. Certainly, removing
public suspicion about conflicts of interest would seem to help move
the agency forward. Straightening out the muddled management
structure of the agency, with its overlapping responsibilities for
the chairman and president, would certainly seem to enhance the
functioning of the agency. Assuring that the governing board has the
full ability to exercise strong oversight over the conduct of the
agency would certainly seem to be an enhancement and long overdue.

At least that is what the most
prestigious body of its sort says. The Institute of Medicine studied
the agency for 17 months under a $700,000 contract with CIRM. The
IOM's charge was to evaluate the performance of the agency and make
recommendations for improvements. The IOM recommendations echoed
findings not only of the Little Hoover Commission, but some in two
earlier studies also funded by the agency.

For CIRM directors now to reject the
IOM findings and turn away would be to indicate that their earlier
admiration and respect for the IOM was something of a sham or, more
likely, now inconvenient.

As for removing ambiguity about what
does or does not enhance the agency's mission, the 29-member board
could simply adopt a resolution declaring that all the IOM
recommendations would enhance the CIRM mission.

One of major obstacles to acting on the
earlier recommendations for changes was Robert Klein, the first
chairman of the agency board. Klein, an attorney and real estate investment
banker, also directed the writing of Proposition 71 and wrote
portions of it himself. He would often make numerical code citations
to the initiative during agency board meetings.

Klein is now gone from the board,
leaving in 2011 at the end of his term. He was replaced by Jonathan
Thomas, a Los Angeles bond financier, who has ushered in a new and
different era at the stem cell agency. Some might say a more
reasonable era. He says he and governing board
take the IOM study seriously.

The report is scheduled for discussion
Jan. 23 at a public workshop at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, Ca.,
the day before the regular board meeting. .

The IOM's recommendations have won theeditorial endorsement of all the California newspapers that have so
far written about them. The newspapers believe that the proposals
would indeed enhance the agency's mission and are, in fact, necessary
if the agency is to survive beyond 2017, when the money for new
grants runs out.

Directors of the stem cell agency are
currently mulling the future of their efforts. If they are to be
successful in raising additional hundreds of millions of dollars –
be they private or public – the directors must confront the
findings of the IOM in a forthright manner. And they must move to
dispel the cloud that now hangs over the stem cell agency.

(Editor's note: The full text of the
2009 legal memo can be found below. Also below is another related
legal memo from Americans for Cures, a stem cell lobbying group
sponsored by Robert Klein at the same time he was chairman of the
stem cell agency. Despite the language on the Americans for Cures
memo, it is a public record. It became a public document when Klein
submitted it to the Little Hoover Commission.)

Legal Memo from California Stem Cell Agency on Little Hoover Recommendations 2009

Legal memo from Americans for Cures regarding the Little Hoover Commission Report 2009

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/8TDUJVXl3rw/exploring-straw-man-argument-against.html

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