AgeX Therapeutics Issues Year-End Letter to Shareholders - Seite 2

1. It is increasingly clear to us that our acquisition of patents related to the generation of ‘universal’ cells was timely and strategic. There is growing interest in such technologies by large biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
2. It has become evident over the past year that partial cellular reprogramming to reverse the age of cells is set to open up a whole new field of pioneering therapeutics. We aspire to lead in this revolution using our partial cellular reprogramming technology “iTR”.
3. Going forward we plan to strengthen our capacity of executing on external licensing and collaboration deals with third parties as well as in-house cell therapy product development. It has become apparent to us through conversations with industry veterans that both our immunotolerance UniverCyte platform for the generation of universal cells and our pluripotent stem cell-based PureStem platform for the derivation and manufacturing of allogeneic, off-the-shelf cells could be transformative for the entire cell therapy industry. While developing our own therapeutic products, we also plan to be reactive to opportunities to partner non-core applications of these technologies with other companies to maximize value for our shareholders by expanding our reach in cell therapy and regeneration. We hope to announce initial collaborations in the coming months.
   
   UniverCyte would potentially be game-changing for the whole cell therapy industry by allowing the transplantation of non-self, donor cells into all patients without the need for powerful immunosuppressant drugs, which are associated with serious side effects, including infections and cancers, as well as kidney and liver toxicity. The UniverCyte platform aims to utilize a proprietary, novel, modified form of the powerful immunomodulatory molecule HLA-G, which in nature seems to be a dominant player in protecting a baby from destruction by the mother's immune system during pregnancy, the only known physiological state of immune tolerance toward foreign tissue in humans.
   
   On the other hand, our pluripotent stem cell-based PureStem platform could potentially overcome numerous industry barriers. PureStem cells would have eight potential advantages compared to other adult stem cell- or pluripotent stem cell-based therapies, including lower manufacturing costs, industrial scalability, off-the-shelf usage, high purity, non-tumorgenicity, young age (so they are not prone to the disadvantages associated with older cells), aptitude for permanent cell engraftment, and potential to manufacture any human cell type.