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Hi ykootsss. Thanks for jumping in. I was starting to think I was imagining there was an AST board! Yes, AST is a subsidiary of BTX but GERN still has an interest as well. I got my initial shares in the GERN transfer of their IP to BTX the AST subsidiary. I picked up some more at under $3 and REALLY wish I had added more. Just glad I didn't sell when we hit that $10.6 high. This news about an upcoming verbal presentation is rocking the stock. Very low float so we may see even more of a run before the presentation.
What is the connection to GERN? If anyone cares to share info on AST I would be much appreciative! I was gifted some shares but not quite sure why...
I agree. It is hard to believe this board doesn't see more action considering the price action of this stock. I will go on record as saying I'm happy I didnt sell my shares when they were spun off at 3 or 4 bucks a few months ago. Doesn't gern and btx own a part of ast? I would think those 2 should benefit as well. No?
Helloooo. Anyone else here? I can't believe no one is posting about the stock. From today's action, it seems pretty obvious tht something is coming down the pike but I haven't seen any news. Anybody else seeing anything substantive?
Given today's move, I guess they really liked the presentation. Yessss!!
What a great month. I'll be interested to see the reaction after the Needham presentation.
Wow. Amazing volume spike... and to the upside. Yesss. I know they're supposed to report tomorrow but has anyone seen any other news?
Not much happening on this board, hey? Haven't seen much news but the vol spike on 1/12 following the presentation at the investors conference was good to see.
I couldn't make it but the last few days trading haven't looked like it made much of a positive impression.
Sorry for the late response. Unfortunately I forgot to check it out... did anyone here get to check it out?
Hey Liquid_Bull thanks for the post on that Google hang. I'd hoped to make it but couldn't get away. Did you check it out? Anything of interest?
Asterias Biotherapeutics to Participate in Live Google Hangout Discussion of Stem Cell-Based Therapies for Spinal Cord Injury
Jane S. Lebkowski, Ph.D., Asterias' President of Research and Development, will participate in a live Google Hangout session presented by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) discussing the latest progress in stem cell-based therapies for spinal cord injury (SCI).
The CIRM Google Hangout session is scheduled for Tuesday, November 18, 2014, from 12:00 to 1:00pm PT (3:00 to 4:00pm ET). To access the event, please visit http://bit.ly/1sh1Dsm.
The session will include a discussion of Asterias' CIRM-funded Phase 1/2a dose escalation clinical trial for SCI. In addition to Dr. Lebkowski, participants include Roman Reed, a tireless advocate for stem cell research and SCI treatments, and Kevin Whittlesey, Ph.D., a CIRM science officer. Mr. Reed will provide the patient advocate community's perspectives, and Dr. Whittlesey will discuss other CIRM-funded research that aims to better understand SCI and to bring stem cell-based therapies to clinic trials.
ASTY moved to NYSE Mkt LLC. New ticker AST:
http://www.otcbb.com/asp/dailylist_detail.asp?d=10/07/2014&mkt_ctg=OTCBB
I thought we'd see more of a drop now that the record date for the warrants has passed. Was hoping to pick some ASTY up on a dip!
If you listened to the previously posted conference call you'll remember hearing that they expected to partner with a large nonprofit who would fund the next phase of VAC2. Well... here's the details.
-Conference Call and Webcast on September 12, 2014 at 8:30 a.m. ET, 5:30 a.m. PT-
MENLO PARK, Calif. and LONDON, Sept. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- CANCER RESEARCH UK and Cancer Research Technology (CRT), the charity's development and commercialisation arm, have reached an agreement with Asterias Biotherapeutics, Inc. (OTCBB: ASTY), a biotechnology company in the emerging field of regenerative medicine, to take forward Asterias' novel immunotherapy treatment AST-VAC2 into clinical trials in subjects with non-small cell lung cancer.
AST-VAC2 represents the tenth treatment to enter Cancer Research UK's Clinical Development Partnerships* (CDP) scheme, with six having progressed into the clinic to date. CDP is a joint initiative between Cancer Research UK's Drug Development Office (DDO) and Cancer Research Technology, to develop promising anti-cancer agents which pharmaceutical companies do not have the resources to progress through early phase clinical trials.
AST-VAC2 is a non-patient specific (allogeneic) cancer vaccine designed to stimulate patients' immune systems to attack telomerase, a protein that is expressed in over 95 percent of cancers but is rarely expressed in normal adult cells.
The vaccine was developed following successful early phase clinical trials of a similar, patient specific (autologous) Asterias vaccine, called AST-VAC1, which was derived from patients' blood cells and tested in prostate cancer and acute myeloid leukemia.
Unlike AST-VAC1, and other autologous (patient specific) vaccines that are developed from a patient's own cells, AST-VAC2 is derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), meaning it can be produced on a large scale and stored ready for use, rather than having to produce a specific version of the drug for each patient.
The trial of AST-VAC2 will evaluate the safety and toxicity of the vaccine, feasibility, stimulation of patient immune responses to telomerase and AST-VAC2, and clinical outcome after AST-VAC2 administration in patients with resected early-stage lung cancer and in patients with advanced forms of the disease.
Pedro Lichtinger, Asterias' chief executive officer, said: "The Asterias collaboration with Cancer Research UK's Drug Development Office and CRT represents a major step in advancing our proprietary dendritic cell platform for the potential benefit of patients.
"AST-VAC2 is based on a specific mode of action that is complementary and potentially synergistic to other immune therapies. We are delighted to partner with Cancer Research UK to advance this important platform through Phase 1/2 clinical trials. Cancer Research UK's Drug Development Office has the global recognition of having the quality, capability and track record of successfully advancing development programs. We are excited about the possibility of favorably impacting the lives of patients across multiple cancers and are proud to be working with Cancer Research UK."
Under the agreement, Asterias will complete development of the manufacturing process for AST-VAC2. Cancer Research UK will then produce the vaccine and conduct the phase 1/2 clinical trial in the UK. On completion of the clinical trial, Asterias will have an exclusive first option to acquire a license to the data from the trial on pre-agreed terms including an upfront payment, milestones and royalties on sales of products. If Asterias declines this option, CRT will then have an option to obtain a license to Asterias' intellectual property to continue the development and commercialisation of AST-VAC2 and related products in exchange for a revenue share to Asterias of development and partnering proceeds.
Dr. Jane Lebkowski, president of research and development at Asterias, said: "The use of human embryonic stem cells to derive allogeneic dendritic cells for cancer immunotherapy has the potential to dramatically improve the scalability, consistency, and feasibility of cellular cancer vaccines. We believe this collaboration will enable the acceleration of clinical studies of AST-VAC2 and the collection of important proof-of-concept data for the entire human embryonic stem cell-derived dendritic cell immunotherapy platform."
Nigel Blackburn, Cancer Research UK's Director of Drug Development, said: "Recent advances in cancer immunotherapy have demonstrated the exciting potential of these treatments to improve outcomes in devastating diseases such as lung cancer. Better treatment options for lung cancer are badly needed and it is through collaborations such as this that we can save more lives sooner."
Conference Call and Webcast Details
Asterias will host a conference call and webcast tomorrow, September 12, 2014, at 8:30 a.m. ET/ 5:30 a.m. PT.
For both "listen-only" participants and those participants who wish to take part in the question-and-answer portion of the call, the dial-in number in the U.S. is 877-407-8291. For participants outside the U.S., the dial-in number is 201-689-8345. To access the live webcast, go to http://wsw.com/webcast/cc/astb2.
A replay of the conference call will be available for seven business days beginning about two hours after the conclusion of the live call. The telephone dial-in number for U.S. participants is 877-660-6853. For participants outside the U.S., the replay dial-in number is 201-612-7415. An archived webcast will also be available for 30 days, and may be accessed at http://wsw.com/webcast/cc/astb2.
*The CDP portfolio includes a monoclonal antibody and other molecularly targeted drugs. One treatment has successfully completed a first-in-man trial and has been licensed back to the originating company for further development.
About Lung Cancer
US:
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. More than 150,000 people in the US die from lung cancer annually. In the US five year survival rates remain only 25-50 percent for early stage disease and less than 20 percent for advanced disease. NSCLC is much more common than other types of lung cancer, and accounts for 85 percent of all lung cancer cases.
UK:
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the UK, with more than 35,000 people dying from the disease each year. It has one of the lowest survival rates of any cancer and less than 10 per cent of people survive more than five years.
About Cancer Immunotherapy and Cancer Vaccines
Vaccines have the potential to act synergistically with immune checkpoint inhibitors by using the checkpoint inhibitor to activate, and the vaccine to direct, the immune response to cancer cells. One promising cancer vaccine approach uses dendritic cells, which normally serve this training function – known as antigen presentation – in the human immune system. However, first generation dendritic cell vaccines, such as Dendreon's Provenge® (sipuleucel-T) and Asterias' AST-VAC1, must be manufactured on a patient-by-patient (autologous) basis, which can result in higher costs of manufacture, variability in product performance, and delayed availability of such autologous products. Asterias' AST-VAC2 product represents a scalable platform for low cost, consistent manufacturing of a dendritic cell vaccine with on demand availability.
About AST-VAC2
AST-VAC2 is an immunotherapeutic product candidate consisting of human embryonic stem cell derived- mature dendritic cells (hESC-DCs) that are engineered to express telomerase. AST-VAC2 is designed as an "off-the-shelf" vaccine platform to stimulate an immune response against tumor cells expressing telomerase. Telomerase is expressed in most human cancers, and plays an important role in the prolonged proliferative lifespan of cancer cells. In contrast, telomerase expression is rare and transient in most normal adult tissues, making telomerase an attractive target for cancer immunotherapy.
Previous studies of a patient specific (autologous), peripheral blood-derived, dendritic cell vaccine targeting telomerase (AST-VAC1) in prostate cancer and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) provided promising data supporting the safety and feasibility of dendritic cell-based telomerase immunotherapy, and showed telomerase-specific immune responses in 55% of AML and 95% of prostate cancer patients.
Additionally, in the AST-VAC1 prostate cancer trials, reductions in PSA velocity and circulating tumor cells which correlated with patient immune responses were observed. The use of human embryonic stem cells, as opposed to patient blood, as the starting material for production of AST-VAC2 provides a scalable system for the production of a large number of vaccine doses in a single production lot, enabling reduced costs of manufacturing, "off-the-shelf" availability, and improved product consistency compared to autologous dendritic cell immunotherapy products.
About Asterias Biotherapeutics
Asterias' core technologies center on stem cells capable of becoming all of the cell types in the human body, a property called pluripotency. Asterias plans to develop therapies based on pluripotent stem cells to treat diseases or injuries in a variety of medical fields having major unmet needs and without adequate therapies available. Asterias initial focus is on two clinical stage programs including oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (AST-OPC1) for spinal cord injuries and antigen-presenting allogeneic dendritic cells (AST-VAC2) for lung cancer.
In October 2013, Asterias acquired the cell therapy assets of Geron Corporation. These assets included INDs for the clinical stage AST-OPC1 and AST-VAC1 programs, banks of cGMP-manufactured AST-OPC1 drug product, cGMP master and working cell banks of human embryonic stem cells, over 400 patents and patent applications filed worldwide including broad issued claims to fundamental platform technologies for the scalable growth of pluripotent stem cells and compositions of matter for several hESC-derived therapeutic cell types, research cell banks, customized reagents and equipment, and various assets relating to the AST-VAC2 program and preclinical programs in cardiology, and orthopedics.
Asterias is a member of the BioTime (NYSE MKT: BTX) family of companies. Asterias Series A Common Stock is traded on the OTC Bulletin Board under the symbol ASTY. Additional information about Asterias can be found at www.asteriasbiotherapeutics.com.
About Cancer Research UK's Drug Development Office
Cancer Research UK's Drug Development Office has an impressive record of developing novel treatments for cancer. It currently has a portfolio of around 30 new anti-cancer agents in preclinical development, phase I or early phase II clinical trials. Since 1982, the Cancer Research UK Drug Development Office has taken over 120 potential new anti-cancer agents into clinical trials in patients, six of which have subsequently made it to market and many others are still in clinical development. Marketed drugs include Temozolomide (also known as Temodal®, Temodar and Temcad), a drug discovered by Cancer Research UK scientists, that is an effective new treatment for brain cancer and Abiraterone Acetate (also known as Zytiga®) which was co-discovered by Cancer Research UK scientists to treat advanced prostate cancer. Four other drugs are currently marketed for treatment of cancer patients. This rate of success is comparable to that of any pharmaceutical company.
About Cancer Research Technology
Cancer Research Technology (CRT) is a specialist commercialisation and development company, which aims to develop new discoveries in cancer research for the benefit of cancer patients. CRT works closely with leading international cancer scientists and their institutes to protect intellectual property arising from their research and to establish links with commercial partners. CRT facilitates the discovery, development and marketing of new cancer therapeutics, vaccines, diagnostics and enabling technologies. CRT is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cancer Research UK, the world's leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research. Further information about CRT can be found at www.cancertechnology.com.
About Cancer Research UK
Cancer Research UK is the world's leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research.
Cancer Research UK's pioneering work into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has helped save millions of lives.
Cancer Research UK receives no government funding for its life-saving research. Every step it makes towards beating cancer relies on every pound donated.
Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of the progress that has already seen survival rates in the UK double in the last forty years.
Cancer Research UK supports research into all aspects of cancer through the work of over 4,000 scientists, doctors and nurses.
Together with its partners and supporters, Cancer Research UK's vision is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured.
For further information about Cancer Research UK's work or to find out how to support the charity, please call 0300 123 1022 or visit www.cancerresearchuk.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
Statements pertaining to future financial and/or operating results, future growth in research, technology, clinical developmen...(etc.)
CONTACT: For media enquiries please contact Ailsa Stevens in the Cancer Research UK\CRT press office on 020 3469 8309 or, out-of-hours, the duty press officer on 07050 264 059. EVC Group Investors: Doug Sherk: 001-415-652-9100, Gregory Gin: 001-862-236-0673, Michael Polyviou: 001-212-850-6020; EVC Group Media: Janine McCargo: 001-646-688-0425
Nice dollar volume/liquidity for this new OTC issue. Reading some good things about this one but one has to wonder, if they are so great why didn't they IPO on the big boards?
Still a close above $9-10 is not out of question here short term with the low float and predictable short-squeeze of the usual suspects in progress.
$10 VERY near term given that it hit $9.37 today! With the low float, patent portfolio and the many years of research results already in the can from the previous GERN assets, if the OPC trials prove out, it could split 20-1 and still be $100!
Yes! Near term $10
Longer term. $100
This is a really good company!
FN
Wow !!!
This is a $100 stock!
Should be another great run today after the very strong Friday close. This ticker has been a great end of summer pickup for me.
I'd say the announcement certainly did stir some buying interest! Yesss....
Asterias Biotherapeutics Announces Record Date for Distribution of BioTime Warrants to Holders of Asterias Series A Common Stock
MENLO PARK, Calif., Sept. 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Asterias Biotherapeutics, Inc. (OTCBB: ASTY) announced today that its Board of Directors has set Monday, September 15, 2014 as the record date (the "Record Date") for determining holders of its Series A common stock entitled to receive BioTime, Inc. common share purchase warrants in Asterias' previously announced warrant distribution.
Asterias plans to distribute, on a pro rata basis, warrants to purchase 8,000,000 BioTime common shares at an exercise price of $5.00 per share to holders of 6,537,779 shares of Asterias Series A common stock. Each shareholder of record as of the Record Date will receive approximately 1.223657 BioTime warrants for each share of Asterias Series A common stock owned. The warrants will expire on October 1, 2018.
No fractional warrants will be issued and no cash in lieu of fractional warrants will be distributed. Instead, the number of BioTime warrants distributable to each shareholder will be based on the total number of shares of Series A common stock that the shareholder owns, and any fractional BioTime warrant remaining will be disregarded.
"The anticipated distribution of the BioTime warrants provides immediate, near-term value to Asterias shareholders while Asterias pursues clinical development of our promising therapeutic products that have the potential to address significant unmet medical needs using our stem cell technology platform," stated Pedro Lichtinger, President and CEO of Asterias.
Wow, what a jammin' day! Has anyone heard anything that might account for the jump?
Here's the investor conference webcast. Well worth a listen...
http://www.wsw.com/webcast/cc/astb/
This stock has huge potential! Would like to hear some other opinions on this.
$14.3 million grant
MENLO PARK, Calif. & ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2014-- Asterias Biotherapeutics, Inc. (“Asterias”), a subsidiary of BioTime, Inc. (NYSE MKT: BTX), today announced that it has been awarded a $14.3 million Strategic Partnership III grant entitled “A Phase 1/2a Dose Escalation Study of AST-OPC1 in Patients with Cervical Sensorimotor Complete Cervical Spinal Cord Injury” from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (“CIRM”). The award provides funding for Asterias to reinitiate clinical development of AST-OPC1 in subjects with spinal cord injury and to expand clinical testing of escalating doses in the target population intended for future pivotal trials.
Asterias Biotherapeutics Receives U.S. FDA Clearance To Initiate Phase 1/2a Clinical Trial Of AST-OPC1 In Patients With Cervical Complete Spinal Cord Injury
Really glad to see this board started and couldn't agree more. I was a long-term investor in GERN and couldn't even believe that they just dumped all those years of research. Too glad to see BTX, ASTY and so many of the original GERN team having the fortitude and foresight to stick with it.
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