AMA updates blood banking/HIV guidelines

The AMA (Chicago) voted to adopt new ethical guidelines for physicians when discussing fetal umbilical cord blood banking with their patients. According to the new guidelines, physicians should: encourage donation to public cord blood banks when a patient wishes to donate; obtain consent before labor begins, if possible; disclose any ties they might have to a cord blood bank; and accept no fees or incentives for referral to a cord blood bank.

"Umbilical cord blood stem cells are useful for some therapeutic purposes and as a potential source of stem cells, and physicians should be prepared to discuss cord blood banking options with their patients during pregnancy," said AMA board member William Dolan, MD.

The AMA also updated its policy on HIV testing to include guidelines in support of routine HIV testing, while continuing to advocate for protection of patient autonomy and privacy.

Pluristem completes GMP facilities

Pluristem Life Systems (New York), a company that makes non-personalized (allogeneic) cell therapy products for a variety of malignant, ischemic and auto-immune disorders, said that it has completed the construction of its new GMP (good manufacturing practice) facilities which are designed to support the manufacturing process of the company's PLX-I (PLacenta eXpanded) cells for the upcoming Phase I clinical trials, in which PLX-I will be used with cord blood as an alternative to bone marrow transplantation. Additionally, these facilities will be sufficient to enable large-scale commercial production of PLX cells.

"The completion of the construction of our GMP facilities is a major milestone in our strategy for controlling the entire commercialization process, from harvesting placental cells to the 3D expansion processes of our PLX cells and product sales," said Zami Aberman, Pluristem's president/CEO.

Merge receives Nasdaq notification

Merge Technologies (d/b/a/ Merge Healthcare; Milwaukee), said that the company received a written notification from the staff of Nasdaq stating that the company's failure to timely file its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2007, would serve as an additional basis for delisting Merge's common stock from the Nasdaq. This notification is in addition to prior Nasdaq staff notifications stating that the common stock was subject to delisting because the company did not timely file its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2007.