EXCLUSIVE: PrimeGen Biotech Will Expand “Substantially” at New Research Facility in Santa Ana
June 23, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
SANTA ANA, Calif. – PrimeGen Biotech Corporation is opening a new 10,000 square-foot research facility in Santa Ana, Calif., and will “grow its operation substantially over the next several months,” the company told BioSpace exclusively on Tuesday.
As part of the news, PrimeGen will no longer maintain its 28,000 square-foot facility in Irvine, Calif., a company spokesman said this morning.
“The company is planning to grow its operation substantially over the next several months and this new facility complete with new labs will give them the foundation to do that. Currently there are about 10 people working out of the Santa Ana office with room to grow,” Michael Farino with New Era Public Relations told BioSpace this morning.
The new move is designed to drive the company’s stem cell research, as well as research into treatments and potential marketing of degenerative and aging related diseases.
Founded in 2002, the company said the new facility is a reaffirmation of its commitment to stem cell research. The new facility will include five laboratories dedicated to tissue processing, cell culture research and development, molecular biology, flow cytometry and histology.
The new facility was designed to give PrimeGen’s research team the “space and tools necessary to delve deeper into the characterization of stem cells and their respective therapeutic value,” the company said. Additionally, the space will allow the company to comply with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Current Good Manufacturing Practice regulations, readying for the translational phase of their stem cell therapeutic objectives.
“Stem cell research has come a long way since we started PrimeGen 13 years ago, and so have the techniques and technology requirements associated with the science," Tom Yuen, PrimeGen Biotech’s chief executive officer said in a statement. “Our new facility was custom designed and built featuring advanced laboratories filled with the latest equipment; allowing our research team to continue pioneering new uses for stem cells as regenerative medicine.”
PrimeGen was founded by a co-founder of AST Computers and Yuen, the former chief executive of Santa Ana-based SRS Labs, which manufactured software and other components that boost sound quality in audio devices. In 2012 SRS Labs was acquired by Calabasas-based DTS Inc. for $148 million, the Orange County Business Journal reported reported. When that transaction occurred, Yuen was still listed as chairman and chief executive of SRS Labs.
This morning the company’s website was down.
In 2006 PrimeGen spun off Czech-based PrimeCell Therapeutics to work exclusively on the therapeutic development of PrimeCell, the first adult, non-embryonic stem cell capable of transforming into any cell type found in the body. PrimeCell Therapeutics will focus solely on adult stem cell reprogramming, and preparing PrimeCell for therapeutic development and application.
“PrimeGen will continue its pursuit of the best approaches across the range of regenerative medicine, while PrimeCell Therapeutics will focus entirely on what we believe to be the most promising methodology yet -- a germ line stem cell reprogrammed to be pluripotent,” Yuen said in a statement at the time of PrimeCell’s formation.
As Rumors Swirl About GlaxoSmithKline Bid, Who Could Suitors Be?
Rumors are swirling that Swiss-based Roche and U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson are eying the U.K. company for approximately $143 billion. But Roche and J&J aren’t the only companies though who have been thought could go after the elephant that is Glaxo.
Last month there was buzz that Pfizer Inc. was considering acquiring Glaxo, a year after it failed to acquire AstraZeneca PLC . Just this month over a third of respondents in a poll conducted by BioSpace believe that AstraZeneca PLC could be in the running to acquire struggling GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
So BioSpace wants to ask our readers again what they predict for this new dealmaking bonanza. Will Glaxo go—and if so, to whom?