Here's some press:
6/10/96BioTransplant Inc. (BTRN), Charlestown, Mass. Business: Transplant UBS Securities analyst Marc Ostro began coverage with a "buy." The company is developing products to overcome the problems of organ transplantation: acute and chronic rejection and limited supply. BTRN has four products in develpment: BTI-322 and MEDI-500 anti-T cell monoclonal antibodies to prevent and treat acute organ rejection; AlloMune to promote human graft acceptance; and XenoMune to allow mini-pig organs to be transplanted into humans. Primate studies with AlloMune show that totally mismatched kidneys can be transplanted without any acute or chronic immuno-suppressive therapy for as long as two years, Ostro said. The first patient has recently been treated. BTI-322 and MEDI-500 may provide a better alternative to OKT3 and ATGAM, which are the current treatments for acute rejection, he said. While Ostro expects SangStat Corp. (SANG) to capture at least 50 percent of the market with Thymoglobulin, BTRN and partner MedImmune Inc. (MEDI) should garner 20 percent of the treatment and 30 percent of the induction market by the year 2000, he said.Partnerships with Sandoz and MEDI, plus a possible AlloMune collaboration, should limit cumulative losses to under $10 million through 1999, Ostro said. He set a price target of $18, based on a comparison with four companies in its field: SANG ($206 million), CytoTherapeutics (CTII, $186 million), Alexion (ALXN, $45 million) and Diacrin (DCRNZ, $137 million). The stock closed at $8.375 on Friday.
CHARLESTOWN, Mass., Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ via Individual Inc. -- BioTransplant Inc. (Nasdaq: BTRN) today announced that notices of allowance have been issued for four patent applications covering integral parts of the Company's proprietary AlloMune(TM) and XenoMune(TM) systems to facilitate the transplantation of mismatched human and porcine organs, respectively. BioTransplant President and CEO, Elliot Lebowitz, Ph.D., made the announcement at the UBS Securities Life Sciences Conference in New York City. Dr. Lebowitz stated: "BioTransplant's systems are uniquely designed to address the critical shortage of organs available for transplantation and to address the challenges of both acute and chronic rejection by combining elements of the donor and recipient immune systems to create specific transplant tolerance in the recipient." "The allowed patents, which cover several technologies essential for creating specific transplant tolerance, as well as technology for preventing hyperacute rejection of transplanted porcine tissue, substantially enhance our proprietary position and underscore the breadth of the critical collaborations we have established for our transplantation technologies," said Dr. Lebowitz. "These allowances are part of BioTransplant's growing portfolio of patents covering our transplantation technologies." The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted three of the four patent allowances, with the fourth granted by the Australian Patent Office. The first U.S. patent allowance, issued to the Massachusetts General Hospital and the National Institutes of Health and exclusively licensed to BioTransplant, covers a gene therapy method for achieving specific transplant tolerance in both the AlloMune(TM) and the XenoMune(TM) systems. This method involves genetically engineering human bone marrow stem cells to express donor cell surface antigens. Application of this method in the XenoMune(TM) system is supported through a collaboration with Sandoz Pharma Ltd. The second U.S. patent allowance, issued to BioTransplant, relates to an additional method for achieving specific transplant tolerance by transplanting donor bone marrow cells into the recipient. This patent allowance covers the porcine cytokines, GM-CSF, IL-3 and stem cell factor, and bone marrow cells which contain vectors expressing these porcine cytokines. These cytokines are critical to ensuring the long-term survival of engrafted porcine bone marrow in xenotransplantation procedures. The bone marrow response to these growth factors is species specific, which has been demonstrated in proof-of-principle studies in primates. The third patent allowance covers porcine IL-10, an immunomodulatory molecule, and has been issued to the Massachusetts General Hospital and exclusively licensed to BioTransplant. The Australian patent allowance, issued to the Alberta Research Council, Canada, and the Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma and co-exclusively licensed to BioTransplant, covers techniques for facilitating the transplantation of xenogeneic tissue. These techniques involve the specific removal of anti-porcine antibodies from the transplant recipient's blood by using carbohydrates to eliminate the natural antibodies responsible for hyperacute rejection in the transplant recipient. BioTransplant's approach to transplantation, specific transplant tolerance, is based on work pioneered by David Sachs, M.D., of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Specific transplant tolerance may allow the recipient's immune system to accept donor tissue as "self" without compromising the recipient's immune defenses. This is achieved by mixing elements of the donor's immune system into that of the recipient. The AlloMune(TM) System, for human-to-human transplantation, and the XenoMune(TM) System, for the transplantation of organs from miniswine into humans, contain a number of advanced approaches utilizing specific transplant tolerance to facilitate the acceptance of donor tissue by the human immune system. BioTransplant Incorporated is developing proprietary anti-rejection pharmaceuticals and organ transplantation systems which represent a comprehensive approach to inducing long-term specific transplantation tolerance in humans. The Company's product candidates are intended to reduce or eliminate the need for lifelong immunosuppressive therapy, minimize infections and complications associated with organ transplantation, reduce the cost of treating end-stage organ disease and increase the supply of transplantable organs. This press release includes forward-looking statements based on management's current expectations. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from such expectations include, but are not limited to: ability to secure future funding; difficulties inherent in developing pharmaceuticals and procedures for organ transplantation; uncertainty as to whether there will exist adequate reimbursement for these products from government, private health care insurers and third-party payers; and uncertainties as to the extent of future government regulation of the transplantation business. SOURCE BioTransplant Inc. /CONTACT: Elliot Lebowitz, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of BioTransplant Inc., 617-241-5200, or Gretchen L. P. Schweitzer, Senior Associate of Feinstein Partners Inc., 617-577-8110/ (BTRN) [10-07-96 at 08:29 EDT, PR Newswire]
9/9/96 Activated Cell Therapy, Mountain View, Calif. BioTransplant Inc. (BTRN), Charlestown, Mass. Business: Transplant BTRN received exclusive worldwide rights to Activated Cell Therapy's bone marrow stem cell isolation and enrichment device in the field of organ transplantation. BTRN will use the device to enhance its AlloMune and XenoMune systems to create specific tolerance to transplanted organs from human and pig donors. The two systems use a bone marrow transplant from the organ donor to enble the recipient's immune system to accept the new organ.
10/14/96 BioTransplant Inc. (BTRN), Charlestown, Mass. Business: Transplant BTRN received notices of allowance for four patents covering its AlloMune and XenoMune systems. AlloMune facilitates the trans-plant of mismatched human organs, while XenoMune aids in the transplant of porcine organs. Two allowed U.S. patents will issue to Massachusetts General Hospital and are exclusively licensed to BTRN. One covers a gene therapy method to achieve specific transplant tolerance in both AlloMune and XenoMune systems, while a second patent covers porcine IL-10, an immunomodulatory molecule. A third patent, issued to the company, covers a method for achieving specific transplant tolerance by transplanting donor bone marrow cells into the recipient. The fourth allowance, for an Australian patent, covers techniques for facilitating the transplantation of xenogeneic tissue. The patent will issue to the Alberta Research Council and the Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma. BTRN has a co-exclusive license to the patent. |
