ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BioTime, Inc. (NYSE Amex: BTX) announced today that David Warshawsky, Ph.D., CEO of BioTimes subsidiary LifeMap Sciences, Inc. will provide and update on product development at an investor meeting in New York City today. Dr. Warshawsky will describe the origins of XenneX, a company that LifeMap has agreed to acquire, and the business strategy that led to its rapid rise to profitability. He will describe the GeneCards database (www.genecards.com) which is used as a research tool world-wide in academia, research hospitals, patent offices, and leading biotech and pharma companies. He will report that GeneCards enjoys more than 12 million page visits/year by hundreds of thousands of unique users, consistently in top positions for gene search results in Google. Dr. Warshawsky will discuss LifeMaps work to build an integrated map of the thousands of cell types in human development, beginning with the fertilized egg and ending in the developed human. Combined with genomics information, the database is expected to become a road atlas of human biology benefiting medicine and research. In addition, LifeMap is developing its own proprietary technology to effectively analyze data gathered from the data bases for use in the development of cell-based therapies. LifeMap also … Continue reading →

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BioTime, Inc. (NYSE Amex: BTX) announced today that Steven Kessler, Ph.D., Vice President of Research at BioTimes subsidiary ReCyte Therapeutics, Inc. will provide and update on the development of reprogramming technologies and the generation of patient-specific vascular endothelial cells with essentially 100% purity using proprietary ACTCellerateTM technology. Dr. Kessler will also describe the use of ACTCellerateTM cell lines to manufacture specific secreted biologically active proteins, and will show animal preclinical data on the use of particular ACTCellerateTM lines as a potential means of improving recovery after stroke. Also presenting will be ReCytes collaborator Shahin Rafii, M.D., the Arthur B. Belfer Professor of Genetic Medicine and Director of the Ansary Stem Cell Institute at Cornell Weill Medical College. Drs. Kessler and Rafii will describe the wide array of age-related degenerative diseases potentially addressed by novel vascular cell therapies, including coronary heart disease afflicting an estimated 82 million Americans, and stroke that caused one out of every 18 deaths in the United States in 2007. Drs. Kesslers and Rafiis presentation will be available for viewing on BioTimes web site http://www.biotimeinc.com as well as ReCyte Therapeutics web site at http://www.recytecorp.com. About ReCyte Therapeutics ReCyte Therapeutics, Inc. is a majority-owned privately-held … Continue reading →

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BioTime, Inc. (NYSE Amex: BTX) announced today that BioTimes CEO Michael West, Ph.D. will provide and update the development of OTX-CP07 by BioTimes subsidiary OrthoCyte Corporation at an investor meeting in New York City. OTX-CP07 is a combination product with human embryonic cartilage progenitors manufactured from human embryonic stem cells formulated with BioTimes proprietary cell delivery device ReneviaTM. Dr. West will describe studies underway at OrthoCyte that have currently identified progenitors to eight diverse cartilage types of the human body, as well as diverse tendon, bone, and muscle progenitors that may be useful in orthopedic research and the development of novel regenerative therapeutics. Dr. West will also show a video presentation from OrthoCytes Chief Scientific Officer, Arnold Caplan, Ph.D., who is also Director of the Skeletal Research Center at Case Western Reserve University. In the video, Dr. Caplan discusses the significance of the potential use of definitive progenitors of human cartilage for the repair of osteoarthritis, a disease afflicting an estimated 27 million Americans. Dr. Wests presentation as well as the video of Dr. Caplans presentation will be available for viewing on BioTimes web site http://www.biotimeinc.com as well as OrthoCyte Corporations web site at http://www.orthocyte.com. About OrthoCyte … Continue reading →

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BioTime, Inc. (NYSE Amex: BTX) announced today that Charles S. Irving, Ph.D., the CEO of BioTimes subsidiary Cell Cure Neurosciences, Ltd. will provide an update on the development of OpRegen at an investor meeting in New York City. In his presentation, Dr. Irving will describe the unmet medical needs and markets for the treatment of the dry form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and the advantages of Cell Cures OpRegen which has been produced from human embryonic stem cells in culture conditions free of animal products, eliminating the need for designating the product as a xenotransplantation therapeutic. Dr. Irving will also discuss Cell Cures collaboration with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., under which Teva has the option to develop and commercialize both OpRegen and OpRegen-Plus. Dr. Irving will describe the nature of the ongoing preclinical studies which are expected to lead to regulatory filings for the initiation of human clinical trials in 2013. Dr. Irvings presentation will be available on BioTimes web site http://www.biotimeinc.com as well as Cell Cure Neurosciences web site at http://www.cellcureneurosciences.com. Background. Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in an aging population. It is widely believed that the loss or dysfunction of … Continue reading →

MOBILE, Alabama -- At the end of this past season with the Oakland Raiders, an aching Rolando McClain gave an assignment to his agent: Find out more about stem cell therapies for injuries, like other athletes are trying. Ive been having two seasons of nagging pain in my knee, the former University of Alabama standout said. Not long afterward, McClain was on his way to Gulf Shores. There, radiologist Jason R. Williams performed liposuction on McClain and then injected stem cells from the linebackers own fat cells into his knee and into the area of a high ankle sprain. It feels a lot better, McClain said in an interview last week, adding that hes working out four days a week with the Raiders, running, lifting weights, doing squats and even sprinting with hardly any pain at all. About three months ago, Williams, 38, began the new procedure in which he injects patients -- two of them being McClain and former University of Alabama receiver Marquis Maze -- with their own stem cells in an effort to repair damaged joints and muscles. This is going to be the future of medicine, said Williams, who owns Precision StemCell, which includes a diagnostic … Continue reading →

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BioTime, Inc. (NYSE Amex: BTX) and its wholly owned subsidiary OrthoCyte Corporation reported today a means of manufacturing cartilage from human embryonic stem cells that is suited for industrial scale-up of a product for the treatment of osteoarthritis. The paper, published online (ahead of print) in the peer-reviewed journal Regenerative Medicine, characterizes a progenitor cell line produced from human embryonic stem (hES) cells using proprietary ACTCellerate technology. The study reports that the cells are capable of regenerating cartilage with long sought-after identification markers. The study also shows that the cells can be directly expanded on a scale needed for industrial manufacture, which will be necessary in order to make transplantable cells available in commercial quantities. In todays publication, BioTime scientists reported on one ACTCellerate line designated 4D20.8. This proprietary cell line is the cellular component of OrthoCytes product in development, OTX-CP07. The scientific publication demonstrates that 4D20.8 cells possess site-specific markers of craniofacial mesenchyme, in particular, markers of proximal mandibular mesenchyme. This tissue is of significance in that it naturally produces one of the strongest joint cartilages of the body. The study documented conditions in which the cells can be propagated on a large scale, conditions in … Continue reading →