Alliance for Regenerative Medicine Launched

Dedicated to advancing scientific research in regenerative medicine

WASHINGTON, July 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A coalition of universities, life sciences companies, health care investors, and patient advocates with the common goal of advancing cell-based therapies united today to launch the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (Alliance).

Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Alliance is dedicated to promoting regulatory, research, and reimbursement policies that will foster innovation in regenerative medicine. Additionally, the Alliance will serve as a source of information about regenerative medicine for policy makers, the media, and the general public.

Initial charter members of the Alliance include: university-based organizations such as the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Stanford University, the University of Washington, and Georgia Tech University; the Genetics Policy Institute; leading regenerative medicine life sciences companies Geron, Johnson & Johnson, Aldagen, iZumi, Fate Therapeutics, and Maxcyte; and investor organizations Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, and Proteus Ventures. Alliance organizers will announce the final list of charter members later this month.

"We are delighted to be a founder of this extremely important effort," said Dr. Anthony Atala, Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and founder of the Regenerative Medicine Foundation. "The Regenerative Medicine Community needs to speak with one voice and we are eager to join our corporate colleagues in helping lawmakers understand the immense clinical value of these important technologies."

"Regenerative medicine holds enormous promise," said Thomas Okarma, President and CEO of Geron Corporation. "It is critical to educate policy makers about this technology in order to gain the Federal support necessary to turn that potential into cost-effective treatments for patients."

Regenerative Medicine is defined by the National Institutes of Health as the process of creating living, functional tissues to repair or replace tissue or organ function lost due to disease, damage, congenital defects or age. This process may include: regenerating damaged tissues by stimulating previously irreparable organs to heal themselves, using stem cells to grow cells, tissues and organs to repair damaged or destroyed cells and tissue the body cannot heal by itself; and helping to address the problem of the shortage of organs available for donation compared to the number of patients that require life-saving organ transplantation.

Contact: Kate Dando, kate.dando@hklaw.com, 202-457-1817