Monday June 15, 9:53 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
BioTime's PentaLyte Significantly Reduces Hypovolemic Injury
BERKELEY, Calif--(BW HealthWire)--June 15, 1998--BioTime Inc. (NASDAQ:BTIM - news) announced today that in a laboratory study in rabbits, PentaLyte(R), BioTime's pentastarch-based blood plasma volume expander, substantially improved protection of the stomach and lung from damage in the treatment of hypovolemia.
PentaLyte(R), currently in preparation for clinical trials, was compared to Ringer's lactate -- the crystalloid most often employed in surgical procedures. The research was conducted by a team led by Dr. Vance G. Nielsen of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, one of the nation's leading centers for cardiac surgery.
The study is published in the current issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. Vol. 157, pp 1982-1990, 1998). Reprints of the report will be available from BioTime and can be found on the Internet at ajrccm.org.
Dr. Paul Segall, BioTime's chief executive officer, said: ''These results confirm our decision, in cooperation with specific domestic and internationally-based pharmaceutical companies, to develop a variety of proprietary starch-based plasma expanders for the multi-billion dollar world-wide blood volume replacement market. PentaLyte(R), which is more quickly metabolized than Hextend(R), will broaden physicians' options for using plasma expanders in the millions of surgeries in which small amounts of blood loss are generally treated with the less effective crystalloids like Ringer's lactate. Hextend(R) is BioTime's physiologically balanced hetastarch-based plasma volume expander for high volume blood loss surgeries. BioTime anticipates that the commercial availability of Hextend(R) may be determined before the end of this year.''
The company remains highly confident about the prospects for its products, as well as the outcome of the discussions and negotiations regarding its licensing arrangements with multinational pharmaceutical companies. BioTime cautions its shareholders not to rely on unsubstantiated rumors, and instead to refer to the company's SEC filings and the company's press releases for information about BioTime and its products.
BioTime, headquartered in Berkeley, Calif., is engaged in the research and development of synthetic blood plasma expanders and hypothermic blood volume replacement solutions and technology for use in surgery, emergency trauma treatment, the preservation of organs awaiting transplant, and for other biomedical applications.
Statements contained herein that are not historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. These factors include complete statistical analysis of clinical trial data, BioTime's ability to obtain FDA and foreign regulatory approval to market Hextend(R), the availability and terms of additional financing, competition from products manufactured and sold or being developed by other companies, and the price of and demand for any BioTime products that are ultimately sold.
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Contact:
BioTime Inc., Berkeley, Calif.
Victoria Bellport, 510/845-9535
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