Several Appointments Made at BioTime and Subsidiaries

Andrews, who will join the BioTime audit committee, is vice president-chief accounting officer of ophthalmic device company STAAR Surgical Company. She joined STAAR in 1995 and served in positions of increasing responsibility over the next eighteen years, first as assistant controller, then as vice president-international finance, then as global controller and then as vice president-chief financial officer from 2005 until 2013. Following her appointment as chief financial officer in 2005, Andrews was a member of the senior executive team that successfully led the transformation of STAAR into a rapidly growing, profitable, and financially strong industry leader. Early in her career, she served as a senior accountant and auditor for KPMG Peat Marwick, a major public accounting firm.

Schlachet is the former chairman and CEO of Syneron Medical Ltd., an Israeli aesthetic medical device company, and he has served as a director of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. His career also includes other senior executive management positions in the food industry, in venture capital, and in science and research, including serving as vice president of finance and administration of the Weizmann Institute of Science, a post-graduate scientific research institute in Israel, and as CEO of its technology transfer company Yeda Research and Development Company Ltd. Schlachet also serves as board chairman of BioTime’s subsidiary Cell Cure Neurosciences Ltd.

The appointment of Andrews and Schlachet to the BioTime board of directors fills two vacancies created by the resignations of Henry L. Nordhoff and Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D. (former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) last week. Nordhoff and von Eschenbach subsequently resigned from the board of directors of BioTime’s subsidiary Asterias Biotherapeutics Inc.

In addition, BioTime’s CEO and Board Member Michael D. West, Ph.D., has replaced Thomas Okarma as president and CEO of Asterias. West will work with Asterias management and its board of directors to better align the company’s expenditures with available capital resources, and will continue to explore synergistic opportunities at Asterias and BioTime that may advance product development in a cost effective manner.

West had served as Asterias’ vice president of technology integration, in which position he focused on opportunities to improve efficiencies in Asterias and BioTime product development programs through coordination of the companies’ respective technologies. The first steps in this approach were taken in the original contribution of assets to Asterias, in which BioTime provided Asterias with quantities of certain human embryonic stem cells developed by BioTime’s subsidiary ES Cell International Pte Ltd (ESI) under current good manufacturing practices (cGMP), and nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use certain ESI patents pertaining to stem cell differentiation technology. Asterias scientists are already considering ways to integrate the use of the ESI cell lines into Asterias’ product development programs.

“We remain committed to Asterias and to building shareholder value with its industry leading technologies and with prudent financial management, “ said West. “We also welcome our new shareholders who will receive Asterias Series A common stock when Geron Corporation completes its distribution of those shares to its stockholders. Asterias’ management is continuing to evaluate the opportunities for Asterias’ stem cell assets in order to select the best paths for the advancement of its key product programs, including paths that can be followed with Asterias’ current financial assets and those that would be open to us if Asterias were to obtain the funding it is seeking in the form of research grants, cooperative development arrangements, and new equity capital.”

In other changes at Asterias, BioTime elected Richard LeBuhn, Robert W. Peabody, and Judith Segall to join the Asterias board of directors.

Richard LeBuhn is senior vice president of Broadwood Capital, Inc., the investment manager of Broadwood Partners, L.P., a private investment fund. LeBuhn previously was principal of Broadfield Capital Management LLC, a private investment firm, and has held senior management positions with other private investment and financial advisory firms.

Peabody is Asterias’ chief financial officer and is senior vice president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer of BioTime. Judith Segall is vice president of administration and secretary of BioTime and is a long-standing member of its board of directors.

BioTime is a regenerative medicine company headquartered in Alameda, Calif.