Russian stem-cell firm to go public
Moscow's Human Stem Cell Institute hopes to break the ice in Russia's frozen IPO market with a $5 million offering, according to an article in Reuter’s.
I’d never heard of this group, which according to Reuters was founded in 2003.
A bit of Googling brought me to this reference, which appears to be a review about cord blood. The last author of the review is A Isaev (Isayev) described as the general manager of the company by Reuters. When I searched PubMed for the authors, I found only four articles by AA Isaev, all written about colon diseases in Russian-language journals.
Its major competitor is a cord-blood banking company called Cryo-Cell. It’s an odd business model, but one that seems to be proliferating. See last year’s run down on cord-blood companies springing up in Asia, as well as a (critical) feature story. Stem cell banking: lifeline or subprime?
Comments
Monya,
I know Dr. Isaev in person very well. He is a businessmen, but not a scientist. That's why he has no PubMed record. He also has a medical degree (MD). He is a pioneer of private cord blood baking in Russia. For scientific part of Institute you can look at PubMed for "Kiselev SL" Dr. Kiselev is a scientific director.
The Institute is a publisher of russian scientific journal dedicated to stem cell research and regenerative medicine. The Institute organize conferences for professionals in cord blood banking and also have a research laboratory, dedicated to develop of "cord blood-based cell products" for clinical trials and gene therapy technologies.
I think IPO for his company (aka institute) is a huge leap in commercialization of stem cell and regenerative medicine technologies in Russia and Eastern Europe regions.
Posted by: Alexey | August 26, 2009 07:52 PM