INDUSTRY NEWS LifeCell to Raise Rs 46 Crore via Private Equity LifeCell International, a Chennai-based cord blood banking and stem cell research company, plans to raise around Rs 46 crore through private equity firms. [Business Standard] Bellicum Pharmaceuticals Announces $3 Million in Convertible Note Funding Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced $3 million in Convertible Note funding. The new funds will be used to prepare for Phase II trials of BPX-101, the company’s DeCIDe™ vaccine for metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer, and CaspaCIDe™, a cell therapy safety switch under initial development in the hematopoietic stem cell therapy setting. [Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Press Release] CIRM Governing Board Re-Elects Robert Klein as Chair, Senator Art Torres and Duane Roth as Co-Vice Chairs The Governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state stem cell agency created by proposition 71, voted to re-elect current chair Robert Klein. [California Institute for Regenerative Medicine Press Release] FamilyCord and Hoag Hospital Team Up for Cord Blood Storage FamilyCord and Hoag Hospital announced a transfer agreement establishing FamilyCord as the cord blood storage provider for the Hoag Cancer Center and Cell Biology Lab. [PR Newswire] Massachusetts General Hospital’s Warren Triennial Prize to Honor Pioneers of Cellular Reprogramming The 2011 Warren Triennial Prize of Massachusetts General Hospital will be awarded to Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, who discovered a method to convert adult cells into cells with characteristics of embryonic stem cells, and Rudolf Jaenisch, MD, whose extension of Yamanaka’s work includes using those cells to generate animal models of important human diseases. [Massachusetts General Hospital Press Release]
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