Stem cell group plans $20m float
By Fleur Leyden
October 27, 2004
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A biotechnology company backed by Visy cardboard king Richard Pratt is aiming for a $20 million float to commercialise stem cell technology for orthopedic and cardiovascular applications.
Mesoblast plans to begin an investor roadshow shortly after Melbourne's spring racing carnival.
Its founder, stem cell scientist Silviu Itescu, is a biotechnology adviser to the Pratt family's Thorney Investments. He is the director of transplantation immunology at the Columbia and Cornell universities' NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
He has identified specific stem cells in adult human bone marrow that help to stimulate blood vessel growth in the heart, and developed a way of using the cells to prevent the death of heart cells and improve cardiac function after a heart attack.
It is believed an adult stem cell technology will have fewer regulatory and ethical hurdles to cross than embryonic stem cell-based techniques.
