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Biotech / Medical : Geron Corp. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Asymmetric who wrote (2281)	2/24/2000 12:44:00 PM
From: scaram(o)uche	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3576

Nobody seems to have noticed or discussed this release..... Thursday February 24, 9:15 am Eastern Time Company Press Release SOURCE: Stem Cell Sciences SCS Comments Relating to EPO Grant of 'Stem Cell Selection' Patent MELBOURNE, Victoria, Australia, Feb. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Stem Cell Sciences (SCS) has responded to concerns raised by several press reports and comments by the EPO relating to the recent EPO granting of a patent owned by the University of Edinburgh and licensed exclusively to SCS. The patent, entitled ''Isolation, selection and propagation of animal transgenic stem cells'' (No. 0695351), principally relates to methods for purifying specific types of genetically engineered stem cells from mixtures of cultured cells. Peter Mountford, Chief Scientific Officer of SCS, said, ''The techniques described in this patent represent a significant advance in the culture of stem cells, making available populations of specific types of stem cells for numerous research and clinical applications. ''While we at SCS are delighted to be at the forefront of this exciting technology, we are, however, concerned that our techniques may have been misunderstood as being intended for use in methods for producing genetically engineered humans. This was never the intention and we are glad to make explicit that this was never the intention and thus, to reassure all interested parties.'' SCS acknowledged that the interpretation of one granted claim (claim 48) could extend to a method for genetically altering humans, but SCS denied any interest or intention to patent or develop technologies for human genetic engineering. SCS also confirmed that it has today contacted the EPO to confirm its position in this regard. SCS's principal business application for this technology is the development of a wide range of cell-based assays for pharmaceutical industry application in the discovery and development of new human medicines. SCS believes the combined use of this technology and established laboratory cell lines will provide a renewable drug screening resource that should significantly reduce and, in some instances, replace the use of laboratory animal testing. SCS also intends to use the technology to purify somatic cells for treating human disease. Examples of such uses might be transplantation of neural cells, pancreatic cells or liver cells into patients suffering from neurological disorders, diabetes or end stage liver disease. SOURCE: Stem Cell Sciences