ACT, Korean Biotech Form New Stem Cell Joint Venture
By Mass High Tech,
Mass High Tech
| 12. 02. 2008
Worcester biotech Advanced Cell Technology Inc. and Korean biotech CHA Biotech Co. Ltd. have formed a new stem cell technology development company called Allied Cell Technology, to be based in Worcester. The international joint venture will use ACT’s hemangioblast cell technology to develop human blood cells.
The developments may be used to address the human blood shortage, particularly in military situations.
Allied Cell Technology will be majority owned by CHA, with ACT (OTC: ACTC) licensing its technology for a $500,000 license fee from CHA, the companies reported. ACT will also work to pull in funding grants for the new joint venture.
Leading the new company in Worcester will be Young Chung, as well as Shi-Jiang Lu and the ACT hemangioblast team. Robert Lanza of ACT will serve as the chief scientific advisor of Allied Cell Technology.
ACT is operating on a limited budget, but has reduced its debt from $49 million to $13 million in the last three years, according to CEO William M. Caldwell IV. To cut operating expenses, the company announced its plans to close a Charlestown research...
Related Articles
By Antonia O'Flaherty, ABC News Australia | 03.04.2026
Fertility giant Monash IVF has agreed to pay financial settlements to families involved in two major bungles that saw two women transferred the wrong embryo.
In February 2025 the company became aware that one of its Brisbane clinic's patients had...
By Rowan Walrath and Laurel Oldach, Chemical & Engineering News | 03.04.2026
Washington, DC—At a press conference held at the US Department of Health and Human Services headquarters on Feb. 23, two doctors from the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia spoke about their hope for the future of...
By Michael Levenson, The New York Times | 02.27.2026
The pharmaceutical giant Novartis has reached a settlement with the family of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cells were taken from her without her consent in 1951, when she was dying of cervical cancer in a segregated ward at...
By Jason Liebowitz, The New Yorker | 03.06.2026
When Talaya Reid was in high school, in a quiet suburb of Philadelphia, she developed fatigue so severe that she spent afternoons napping instead of going out with friends. She was lethargic at school and her grades suffered, but after...
