NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Stem-cell firm BioTime said this week that it will open a subsidiary in China called BioTime Asia to expand its stem cell therapeutics and research tools to the Asian market.
BioTime Asia will be based at the Nanshan Memorial Medical Institute, or NSMMI, and will clinically develop and market therapeutic stem cell products in China and market stem cell research products in China and other Asian countries.
NSMMI, a private Hong Kong-based company, has agreed to become a minority shareholder in BioTime Asia, and will provide the subsidiary with initial laboratory facilities and an agreed number of research personnel, and will arrange financing for clinical trials.
BioTime and its US research tools subsidiary, Embryome Sciences, will license the rights to certain stem cell technology to BioTime Asia, and will sell the Chinese subsidiary stem cell products for therapeutic use and for resale as research products, BioTime said. Under the arrangement, BioTime Asia will license back to BioTime any new technology it might develop or acquire for use outside of China.
BioTime, based in Alameda, Calif., focuses on developing synthetic blood-replacement and related technology Its Embryome Sciences subsidiary offers products for differentiating and expanding human embryonic progenitor cell types.