Asterias Biotherapeutics Announces Collaboration with Cell Therapy Catapult

Asterias Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NYSE MKT:

) has signed an agreement with the UK-based Cell Therapy Catapult to advance development of large scale manufacturing processes for AST-VAC2, Asterias' allogeneic dendritic cell immunotherapy. Under the agreement, the Cell Therapy Catapult will streamline and scale manufacturing processes for AST-VAC2 to support advanced clinical trials and eventual commercialization of AST-VAC2. The Cell Therapy Catapult is a global leader in the development of cell therapies with the goal of accelerating the delivery of these therapies to patients, rapidly, effectively and efficiently. The Cell Therapy Catapult has assembled best-in-class scientists, engineers and facilities in the UK to provide technical resources to ensure cell therapy products can be manufactured scalably and cost effectively. AST-VAC2 is an immunotherapy product that contains mature dendritic cells derived from pluripotent stem cells. AST-VAC2 is engineered to express telomerase, a protein widely expressed in tumor cells, but rarely found in normal cells. The AST-VAC2 dendritic cells are designed to instruct the immune system to generate responses against telomerase and hence tumor cells. To accelerate advancement of AST-VAC2, Asterias has an ongoing partnership with Cancer Research UK to execute the first stage of AST-VAC2 clinical development. As part