BioTime wins $4.7m grant from CIRM

BioTime, a biotechnology company, has reported that the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, or CIRM, has approved a grant to the company of $4.7m to fund research related to its ACTCellerate embryonic stem cell technology.

The overall objective of this grant is to generate tools useful in applying ACTCellerate technology to the manufacture of patient-specific therapeutic products.

The new grant funds awarded by CIRM will be used by BioTime to ‘industrialize’ the manufacture of the purified cell types for therapeutic applications. In particular, the aims of the grant are to generate tools useful in implementing ACTCellerate technology in a patient-specific manner, such as from a patient’s own cells. Both BioTime and CIRM anticipate that the funded research may accelerate the translation of bench top science to bedside treatments for presently incurable diseases.

ACTCellerate is a technology that allows the expansion of over 140 highly purified primitive human embryonic progenitor cells (hEPCs) from human embryonic stem or induced pluripotent stem cells. These hEPCs may possess the ability to become a wide array of cell types with potential applications in research, drug discovery, and human regenerative stem cell therapy, said BioTime.

Michael West, BioTime’s CEO, said: This CIRM grant will allow us to offer important new products to stem cell researchers sooner than we had previously planned. We intend to compete for CIRM grant support for other programs as well. Such programs include iPS technology in the preclinical studies of the therapeutic uses of our technology, such as their use in the treatment of neurological, vascular and orthopedic diseases.