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[DewDiligence]

FDA Places Clincial Hold on Geron's GRNOPC1

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http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080514/20080514006259.html

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Wednesday May 14, 2:30 pm ET

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Geron Corporation (Nasdaq: GERN ) announced today that the company received verbal notice today from the FDA that the company’s Investigational New Drug (IND) submission for GRNOPC1, a cell therapy for spinal cord injury, has been placed on clinical hold. A clinical hold is an order that the FDA issues to a sponsor to delay a proposed trial or to suspend an ongoing investigation.

“We have not yet received a letter from the FDA explaining the decision to place the submission on hold, so we are unable to comment specifically,” said Thomas Okarma, Ph.D., M.D., Geron’s president and chief executive officer. “Once we have the letter and have had a discussion with the agency, we will communicate our findings and our thinking to shareholders. We are disappointed with this action given the interactions we had with the FDA over four years leading to the filing, and the breadth and depth of the submission, some 21,000 pages, predicated on those discussions with the agency.”

Geron is developing first-in-class biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of cancer and chronic degenerative diseases, including spinal cord injury, heart failure and diabetes. The company is advancing an anti-cancer drug and a cancer vaccine that target the enzyme telomerase through multiple clinical trials. For more information, visit www.geron.com.
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