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Stem Cell Startup Lands Funding, CEO

Irvine-based Novocell Inc., one of Orange County’s few stem cell startups, has landed $20 million in venture funding and hired a chief executive.

Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., Johnson & Johnson’s venture arm, led the funding, one of the larger venture financings in the county so far this year.

The round is Novocell’s second. The company, started in 1999, has raised $40 million in all.

Novocell is looking to offer diabetics an alternative to lifelong insulin shots.

J & J; “sees the concept of diabetes cell therapy as being potentially a very important opportunity,” said Alan Lewis, Novocell’s new chief executive.

Earlier this month, Novocell announced the hiring of Lewis to fill a spot that had been vacant since late 2005, when Paul Latta left the company.

Before coming to Novocell, Lewis ran the Signal Pharmaceuticals division of New Jersey’s Celgene Corp. His background also includes serving as vice president of research at what’s now drug maker Wyeth.

Lewis said he’s getting ready for a road show to drum up a third round of financing.

“This is an expensive business,” said Lewis, a native of Wales who lives, appropriately, in Cardiff by the Sea in northern San Diego County.

Novocell is using the money to develop its lead product,”islet cells” from embryonic stem cells.

The company is looking to coat islet cells and insert them into a diabetic patient’s pancreas. The hope is the cells will boost insulin production, cutting down on the need for shots and blood sugar monitoring.

The company is one of just a handful of stem cell businesses in OC.

Others include PrimeGen Biotech LLC, an Irvine company that is using adult stem cells to regenerate several parts of the body, such as heart tissue and pancreatic islet cells. Tom Yuen, cofounder of defunct computer maker AST Research and chairman and chief executive of SRS Labs Inc. in Santa Ana, is chief executive. Yuen is a dialysis patient himself.

Another is Irvine’s California Stem Cell Inc.


For more on this story, see the May 15 edition of the Business Journal.

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