BioTime forms new subsidiary

BioTime believes that the development of products in the embryomics sector may allow Embryome Sciences to commercialize products more quickly, using less capital, than developing therapeutic products from stem cells. Embryome Sciences’ plan is to market its products and services to companies and academic researchers in this growing industry to provide them with the tools they need to attain their goals.

The new BioTime subsidiary plans to launch three kinds of research products in the next two years. The first product is a commercial database that will provide the first detailed map of the embryome, thereby aiding researchers in navigating the complexities of human development and in identifying the many hundreds of cell types coming from embryonic stem cells.

Secondly, Embryome Sciences says that in order to manufacture specific cell types from embryonic stem cells, researchers need to use factors that induce those cells to become a desired cell type. The company plans to develop growth and differentiation factors that can do this, and hopes to launch the first of these products beginning in 2008. The third category of near-term embryomics products that Embryome Sciences will pursue, to be launched beginning in 2009, is a line of purification tools useful to researchers in quality control of products for regenerative medicine.