CEO Interview: BioTime, Inc. (BTX) - Dr. Michael D. West
November 15, 2010 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals Report offering a timely review of the Biotechnology sector. This Special Report contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs, Equity Analysts and Money Managers. Please find an excerpt below.
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Dr. Michael D. West, Ph.D., is the Chief Executive Officer of BioTime, Inc., of Alameda, Calif., as well as its subsidiaries. The companies are focused on developing an array of research and therapeutic products using human embryonic stem cell technology. He received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1989, concentrating on the biology of cellular aging. He has focused his academic and business career on the application of developmental biology to the age-related degenerative disease. He was the Founder of Geron Corporation, of Menlo Park, Calif., and from 1990 to 1998, he was a Director and Vice President.
TWST: Would you start with a brief overview of the history and evolution of BioTime?
Dr. West: BioTime (BTX)began as a biotechnology company focused on the development and marketing of solutions for blood disorders. One product approved by the FDA and on the market today in the United States and South Korea is called HextendTM, which is a solution often used for the treatment of low blood pressure following a major loss of blood, such as occurs in elective surgery or trauma. An example of its use in trauma would be where soldiers experience major blood loss after encountering an IED in Iraq or Afghanistan; their blood volume is restored with Hextend to restore blood pressure and to save lives. In 2007 I joined the company as Chief Executive Officer and brought into the company technologies which have been the focus of my career, namely those in the stem cell and regenerative medicine field.
TWST: Would you give us more background on your blood plasma volume expanders and tell us whether there is any other company that has a similar approach?
Dr. West: There's a large industry serving medical needs in blood, plasma and fluid replacement. One large sector of this market is served by sterile fluids designed primarily to replace blood volume as opposed to blood cells. These latter fluids are called "crystalloids." We're proud of Hextend and that it is a unique and proprietary formulation which differs from many of the other products in providing balanced electrolytes - that is, a more normal and physiological means of restoring blood volume.
TWST: What's the agenda at this point? What are your priorities? What would make BioTime a success?
Dr. West: We are currently intensely focused on becoming a leader in the emerging field of regenerative medicine. Let me take just a minute to explain what I mean by that. The field of regenerative medicine refers to new technologies that for the first time in medicine make it possible to manufacture any and all of the thousands of cells in the human body. All of this became possible with the isolation of new and powerful stem cells in the late 1990s. It has taken over 10 years of basic research to learn to turn these cells into scalable and purified products. But the good news is BioTime has assembled a platform of technologies that now allow us to scale up over 200 diverse cell types for the first time. The technology platform begins with these cells we've all heard of called embryonic stem cells.
They have caused so much excitement because a means of manufacturing all cell types makes it possible to design new potential therapeutics for a wide array of currently incurable diseases, such as heart failure, diabetes, arthritis, Parkinson's disease and many other disorders. The primary way in which BioTime differs from its competition is based on two core technologies that distinguish us from everyone else. The first is called ACTCellerateTM. ACTCellerate is a technology designed to manufacture, in a purified state, over 200 diverse human cell types from these all-powerful stem cells. This is a proprietary technology which addresses one of the largest problems that companies are facing, which is how do you actually scale up and manufacture the desired cell types on an industrial scale and yet provide them in a reliably purified state. In the course of 2010, the company has been rolling out a series of these cell types for sale in the research product market as a means of generating near-term revenues for the company.
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