News

Vesta Therapeutics Announces SBIR Award To Develop Novel Technologies For Fatty Liver Disease

On June 15, 2008 Vesta Therapeutics, Inc. was awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This grant will support the development of a novel process to clear lipids from fatty livers.

Livers available for research are increasingly steatotic (fatty). High levels of steatosis add an uncontrollable layer of variability to the function of isolated hepatocytes for cell therapy and drug testing. Devising strategies to eliminate fat from freshly isolated or cryopreserved hepatocytes would be extremely valuable and would be crucial for increasing the availablity of human hepatocytes for drug discovery and cell therapy.

The grant is a collaboration between Vesta Therapeutics Inc. and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Joseph Ruiz, Vesta Therapeutics Director of R&D is the Principal Investigator. Dr. Steven Zeisel, Director of the UNC Clinical Nutrition Research Unit, will be the collaborator.

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Vesta Therapeutics Announces Formation of Scientific Advisory Board to Advance Development of New Liver Therapies

Cell Therapeutics for Liver Repair and Regeneration to be Tested in Safety Clinical Trials

Durham, NC March 6, 2006, Vesta Therapeutics today announced the establishment of a Scientific Advisory Board assembled to assist in the clinical development of a promising new approach to treat patients with various liver diseases. Board members include Dr. Sanjeev Gupta, Dr. Mark Kay, Dr. Eric Lagasse and Dr. Lola Reid.

"Vesta is excited about this world class group of scientists and clinicians working to help us move our product candidates into the clinic," said Mark Johnston, Acting President. Vesta plans to initiate a single-center safety trial for patients with acute liver failure and in-born errors of metabolism using its first product candidate. The first product is a whole cell population consisting of human liver cells including hepatic stem cells, non-parenchymal cells and hepatocytes. Other candidates in the pipeline include adult stem cell based products, including a purified population of hepatic stem cells.

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Vesta Therapeutics Announces SBIR Grant

On June 15, 2005 Vesta Therapeutics, Inc., was awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant from the National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This grant will support exploring the use of adipose derived adult stem (ADAS) cells as a therapeutic modality in liver disease

The objective of this Phase I is to demonstrate the in vitro ability of human ADAS cells to express hepatocytes or hepatic biliary cell differentiation markers in conjunction with experssion of cytokines associated with liver regeneration. The planned Phase II will be a preclinical study aimed at demonstrating ADAS cell ability to enhance hepatic regeneration and repair in vivo.

The grant is a collaboration between Vesta Therapeutics, Inc., and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Lousiana State Universtiy, Baton Rouge, LA. John W. Ludlow, Ph.D., Vesta's Senior Director for Cell Therapy, will be the Principal Investigator. Jeffry M. Gimble., M.D., Ph.D., Professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, will be the collaborator.

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About Vesta Therapeutics

Vesta Therapeutics is a privately held company developing cell therapeutics for liver repair and regeneration. The Company's technology is centered on the isolation, expansion, differentiation and cryopreservation of adult human liver cells, including human hepatic stem cells, obtained from organ donor livers that are not suitable for whole organ transplantation. The Food and Drug Administration has allowed the Company's Investigational New Drug (IND) application for a Phase I clinical trial of a cryo-preserved, allogeneic human liver cell product for the treatment of patients with various liver disorders. For further information please visit the Company web site at www.vestatherapeutics.com.

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Vesta Therapeutics will attend the following industry conferences:

- AOPO Annual Meeting - June 10-15, 2008, Phoenix, AZ

- NATCO Annual Meeting - August 10-14, 2008, Boston, MA