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Stem Cell offloads Japanese stake(The Herald Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) STEM Cell Sciences, the Edinburgh University spin-out whose technology aims to cure degenerative disorders, has sold its 25.85-per cent stake to its Japanese partner - a move which gives it global rights to commercialise its pioneering technology. The Alternative Investment Market-listed company said yesterday that under the terms of the agreement with SCS KK (Japan) it had "secured all outstanding rights" to commercialise its neural stem (NS) cell technology for both research and stem cell based therapies. Stem Cell Sciences set up SCS KK as a joint venture in Japan in 2001 to take advantage of the therapeutic advances coming out of the worldrenowned Riken Centre for Developmental Biology in Kobe. A spokesman for Stem Cell Sciences yesterday said: "The agreement is such that SCS KK will concentrate on the therapeutic side of things, and Stem Cell Sciences will focus on its neural stem technology." Stem Cell's NS cell platform, which the firm believes to have potential broad research applications in the pharmaceutical industry, grows stem cells in the numbers required for highcontent drug screens and tests. "The recovery of these rights from SCS KK (Japan) completes a series of transactions through which SCS and SCS KK have become fully-independent companies, " the firm said. It added that it has also retained the right to use the company name in Japan and has "fully divested its shareholding in in SCS KK". The company said that as of September 30, the "carrying value of SCS Group investment in SCS KKwas GBP25,000". Stem cells are the building blocks of other cells, which researchers believe can be coaxed and grown into any type of cell in the human body. The firm aims to create the technology for stem cells to be implanted directly into the body to repair the damage caused by a range of degenerative disorders, and eventually to play a major role in curing diabetes, Aids, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, as well as helping patients who have suffered strokes and spinal cord injuries. Chief executive Dr Peter Mountford added: "Regaining full global rights to our NS cell technology will enable us to accelerate our development and licensing of these cells." Copyright 2007 Newsquest Media Group Ltd, Source: The Financial Times Limited |