Geron Corp – ‘8-K’ for 4/5/05 – EX-99.1

On:  Friday, 4/8/05, at 5:29pm ET   ·   For:  4/5/05   ·   Accession #:  1157523-5-3205   ·   File #:  0-20859

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Current Report   —   Form 8-K
Filing Table of Contents

Document/Exhibit                   Description                      Pages   Size 

 1: 8-K         Geron Corporation 8-K                                  2     13K 
 2: EX-99.1     Geron Corporation Exhibit 99.1                         2±    11K 

EX-99.1   —   Geron Corporation Exhibit 99.1

                                                                    Exhibit 99.1

Geron and Exeter Life Sciences Form Joint Venture for Licensing Animal Cloning  
Technologies                                                                    

MENLO PARK, Calif. & PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 6, 2005--Geron   
Corporation (Nasdaq:GERN) and Exeter Life Sciences, Inc. announced today the    
formation of stART Licensing, Inc., a new company that will manage and license a
broad portfolio of intellectual property rights related to animal reproductive  
technologies. This unique portfolio includes the foundational nuclear transfer  
cloning technology that was developed at the Roslin Institute for the cloning of
Dolly the sheep.                                                                
Through the creation of the stART Licensing joint venture the leading 
intellectual property for animal cloning, including the full breadth of rights  
under the Roslin technology, will be combined under one roof.                   
Geron is contributing patent rights to stART, including rights to the 
Roslin technology and patents to related developments arising from animal       
cloning work that Geron funded at the Roslin Institute. Exeter is contributing  
rights acquired from PPL Therapeutics, Inc. to use the Roslin technology for    
producing proteins in milk of animals, as well as rights to other cloning       
technologies, including chromatin transfer, a technology developed at the       
University of Massachusetts. Exeter will provide initial capital for the        
company's operations, as well as management services. Geron and Exeter will hold
49.9% and 50.1% stakes in stART, respectively. In addition, Geron will receive  
up-front cash and milestone payments. Geron and Exeter will receive             
distributions of profits from stART proportionate to their equity interests.    
    "We are very pleased to announce the formation of stART with Exeter as our
partner," said David J. Earp, Geron's chief patent counsel and senior vice      
president of business development. "Given Geron's focus on the development of   
our human oncology and stem cell products, we made the strategic choice to put  
our animal cloning assets into a dedicated joint venture. Exeter was the clear  
partner of choice, bringing expertise in animal cloning and experience using the
Roslin technology. In addition, Exeter has acquired exclusive rights for making 
proteins in milk using the Roslin technology; these rights were previously      
exclusively licensed from Roslin to PPL but will now be made broadly available  
through stART."                                                                 
   "We see great potential for animal biotechnology both in human health and
agricultural product applications, and a parallel opportunity for providing     
enabling technology rights to companies developing these products," said        
Jonathan Thatcher, chief executive officer of Exeter. "stART will serve as a    
global clearing house for rights to these advanced reproductive technologies."  
Recent successes by Geron in three patent interferences bring further 
clarity to the patent landscape, demonstrating the strength of the Roslin patent
portfolio held by stART. In each case the Board of Patent Appeals and           
Interferences of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued final judgments in 
favor of Geron, invalidating animal cloning patents held by Advanced Cell       
Technology (ACT) and Infigen. ACT has appealed one of the two judgments against 
it, and the other may still be appealed.                                        
   Dr. Scott Davis, founder and former head of ViaGen, will be the president
of stART. Dr. Davis was chair of the genetics faculty at Texas A&M University   
and a professor there for 12 years. Dr. Davis will oversee stART's intellectual 
property investment and licensing strategy.                                     
"stART will focus on generating revenues through an active and broad  
licensing program," said Dr. Davis, president of the new joint venture. "By     
offering companies and academic institutions access to enabling rights from the 
Roslin patent portfolio, coupled with the most promising cloning improvements,  
we can enable best practices, accelerating research and product development in  
this field."                                                                    
     The technology that stART offers has the potential to impact many fields of
biotechnology product development. For human medicine, cloning may be used to   
develop animals that secrete therapeutic proteins in their milk, that produce   
humanized antibodies for use as vaccines or that produce animal tissues modified
for xenotransplantation. In agriculture, cloning can be used to improve health, 
quality and consistency of animal herds more quickly than is possible through   
conventional breeding.                                                          

About Exeter Life Sciences                                            

  Exeter Life Sciences, Inc. delivers innovative services that improve the
health of people, enhance the breeding of animals, and utilize biotechnology to 
create environmentally-friendly agricultural products. Through its three        
subsidiary companies, Kronos Incorporated, ViaGen, and Arcadia Biosciences,     
Exeter is regarded as one of the nation's most advanced scientific advisory     
companies.                                                                      

About Geron Corporation                                               

   Geron is a biopharmaceutical company developing and commercializing three
groups of products: i) therapeutic products for oncology that target telomerase;
ii) pharmaceuticals that activate telomerase in tissues impacted by senescence, 
injury or degenerative disease; and iii) cell-based therapies derived from its  
human embryonic stem cell platform for applications in multiple chronic         
diseases.                                                                       
   This news release may contain forward-looking statements made pursuant to
the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 
1995. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements in this press
release regarding potential applications of Geron's technology constitute       
forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including,     
without limitation, risks inherent in the development and commercialization of  
potential products, need for future capital and maintenance of our intellectual 
property rights. Actual results may differ materially from the results          
anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Additional information on      
potential factors that could affect our results and other risks and             
uncertainties are detailed from time to time in Geron's periodic reports,       
including the annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004.  

CONTACT: Geron Corporation                                            
David L. Greenwood, 650-473-7765                    
or                                              
stART Licensing & Exeter Life Sciences              
Suzanne Turner or Brian Duss, 202-466-9633          
brian@turnerstrategies.com                          

Dates Referenced Herein   and   Documents Incorporated by Reference

This ‘8-K’ Filing		Date		Other Filings
Filed on:		4/8/05
		4/6/05
For Period End:		4/5/05
		12/31/04		10-K
				List all Filings