Geron's once-heralded stem cell therapy program -- financed at one
point with $25 million from the California stem cell agency – has
officially landed in the hands of an Alameda, Ca., enterprise
involving two former CEOs of Geron.
Completion of the transaction was announced Tuesday by BioTime,
which acquired the Geron assets. The move “could jump start
groundbreaking but not yet clinically successful stem cell programs,”
according to an article by Ron Leuty of the San Francisco Business
Times. Leuty also outlined the complicated financial terms.
Geron, based in Menlo Park, Ca., was the first in the nation to
launch a clinical trial for a human embryonic stem cell therapy. In
2011, in a major departure from its usual procedures, the stem cell agency loaned Geron $25 million to help with the trial. About three months after the
loan agreement was signed on Aug 1, 2011, Geron announced it was abandoning the trial for financial
reasons. Four patients had been enrolled in the trial.
Geron repaid the loan with $36,732.33 in interest, laid off
38 percent of its staff (66 persons connected to the stem cell
program) and began an effort to sell off the stem cell effort.
About a year later, BioTime, which is headed by Michael West, who
founded Geron, began expressing an interest. Tom Okarma, another
Geron CEO, hooked up with West on the effort and is now head of
Asteria Biotherapeutics, a BioTime subsidiary that is taking control
of the old Geron stem cell program.
Geron let Okarma go in February
2011. He was head of the company as it plowed through the arduous FDA
process to begin the clinical trial of the stem cell treatment for
spinal injuries.
The stem cell agency has said that the loan to Geron is not
transferable automatically to BioTime. The firm will have to compete
for funding under the agency's established rules.
Both Geron and BioTime are publicly traded. In the last 12 months,
Geron stock has traded at a range from 91 cents to $3.95, closing at
$3.40 yesterday. BioTime has traded in a range from $2.67 to $5.02,
closing at $3.88 yesterday.
As part of the deal with Geron, the stem cell agency received
537,893 warrants to buy Geron stock at $3.98 each. The warrants
expire in 2021.
Here are other news articles on completion of the transaction,
which was announced earlier this year: by Jef Akst at The Scientist,
by Damian Garde at Fierce Biotech.
No comments:
Post a Comment