NeoStem Reports Licensing of Treg Patents

NeoStem, Inc.

("NeoStem" or the "Company"), a leader in the emerging cellular therapy market, today announced the licensing of three families of patents from the University of California, San Francisco ("UCSF"). NeoStem's worldwide exclusive license to these patents provides incremental protection for the Company's human Regulatory T cell ("Treg") platform, and complements the recently announced collaboration with UCSF and the laboratories of Drs. Jeffrey Bluestone and Qizhi Tang, to develop Tregs for the treatment of type 1 diabetes, steroid resistant asthma, and organ transplant rejection. The three patent families cover methods to isolate, expand and use Tregs with therapeutic potential for autoimmune disorders, including U.S. patent 7,722,862, which claims a cellular immunotherapy for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. "In the U.S., type 1 diabetes affects 1.3 million people and has an economic cost of over $14 billion, numbers which are significantly higher worldwide," said Dr. Douglas W. Losordo, Chief Medical Officer of NeoStem. "These patents bolster our existing portfolio in the Treg arena and enhance our ability to combat autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes using Treg therapy." NeoStem's patent estate for its Treg program now includes exclusive rights to 22 issued patents in U.S. and major international commercial geographies and covers isolation, activation, expansion and methods of treating or preventing certain conditions and/or diseases using Tregs.