Geron Purchases Roslin Bio-Med.

Geron, one of the leading companies in anti-aging and telomerase research recently purchased Roslin Bio-Med, the company which brought us Dolly, the first mammalian clone. This merger will marry the technologies of somatic cell cloning which gave rise to Dolly with the complementary telomerase and embryonic stem cell expertise of Geron for use in cell, tissue and organ transplants for the treatment of degenerative diseases. Degenerative diseases that may be targeted include cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, spinal chord injury and Parkinson's disease.

Roslin was purchased for $27 million and $20 million dollars has been committed to research over the next six years. This research funding has been allocated for nuclear transfer work and the characterization of animal genomes. Roslin Bio-Med becomes Geron Bio-Med, a wholly owned subsidiary of Geron. Geron Bio-Med will concentrate in the short term on developing animal derived cells, tissues and organs as replacement therapies for xenotransplantation. Xenotransplantation is the transplantation of tissues from animals to humans.

It appears that Geron has refocused from telomerase based therapeutics targeted at cancer and aging to teaming its telomerase technologies with nuclear transfer and stem cell technology to produce immortal cell lines for reintroduction as transplants. The time frame for clinical applicability for these technologies is quoted to be from five to twenty years in the future

The potential of these combined technologies is substantial. There are a number of degenerative diseases to which these techniques may be applied (See table). It appears that Geron is not content to rely solely upon the proprietary telomerase technologies but is allying this expertise with complementary technologies. The Geron merger with Roslin has added some powerful intellectual capital to Geron. I look forward to further developments resulting from the teaming of this technologies in the next few years.

Table 1: Diseases targeted by Geron derived technologies.