BioTime replies to Barron's.

BERKELEY, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--April 28, 1997--The following is a statement issued by BioTime, Inc. -0-

BioTime, Inc. (NASDAQ:BTIM) would like to reply to the erroneous comments made about the company in Alan Abelson's column "Up & Down Wall Street" on page four of the April 28, 1997 edition of Barron's.

The thrust of Abelson's article is that there may be a limited market for BioTime's new blood plasma expander product, Hextend, because BioTime's product contains hetastarch, and some physicians do not like to use the older hetastarch solutions that are presently on the market. The point that Abelson misses is that the shortcomings of Hespan and its generic equivalent are the very reasons that there is a need for BioTime's product.

BioTime's Hextend is designed to eliminate the shortcomings of those solutions. Hespan and the generic hetastarch solution that Abelson's physicians complained about consist of only hetastarch in saline. In contrast, BioTime's Hextend is a patent-protected product with a comprehensive buffered solution containing in addition to hetastarch, calcium, magnesium, potassium, glucose and other components in proportions which approximate normal concentrations in blood.

Extensive animal studies by the company and independent investigators have shown that when Hextend replaces a substantial amount of blood volume, the concentrations of these vital components are kept more normal than when the old Hespan solution is used, and in some cases, survival rates were better with Hextend.

The reports of bleeding problems with Hespan have been carefully addressed by BioTime scientists and their medical collaborators. BioTime's Hextend, unlike Hespan, contains calcium. Calcium is necessary for blood clotting. None of the numerous animal studies with Hextend indicated any notable bleeding problems.

Hextend is currently in Phase III double-blinded clinical trials at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York, and at the Duke University Medical Center. In these trials, Hextend's ability to replace substantial quantities of blood volume often lost in urologic, orthopedic, gastrointestinal and gynecological procedures is being compared to Hespan. To date, patients have received amounts varying from one-half to five liters of test solution. Based on the extensive pre-clinical experimentation that showed the superiority of Hextend, it is our firm belief that if similar results are shown in human clinical trials, Hextend sales will eclipse those of the present hetastarch solutions.

Another weakness in Abelson's discussion is his inadequate consideration of Hextend's market potential. Blood transfusions are required in approximately 2.5 million operations each year in the United States. Hospitals will generally not transfuse blood until several liters of intravenous solutions such as crystalloids, hetastarch solutions and human-donated albumin have been infused. As a result, millions of liters of intravenous solutions are used to replace lost blood volume prior to transfusions. Since Hextend is designed to eliminate the problems that make many physicians reluctant to use other hetastarch solutions, BioTime's yearly revenues from capturing even a portion of the market could be very substantial. That is before taking into account the world market or other potential indications for Hextend such as organ preservation and low temperature medicine.

BioTime's licensing agreement provides that BioTime will receive royalties of up to 36% of sales of Hextend plus licensing fees of up to $37.5 million paid as a percentage of sales.

We also take issue with Abelson's assertion that the half-life of hetastarch in the body is 2 to 3 years. BioTime's sources indicate that 41-47% of blood-infused hetastarch is excreted in the urine within 2 days (Klotz, U. and Kroemer, H. Clinical Pharmokinetics 12: 123-135, 1987).

We can understand how a layman like Abelson can misunderstand medical science and the market for medical products. It is more difficult to excuse his erroneous description of our current financial position. His article states that BioTime's net worth is only $2 million. In fact, we currently have about $7 million in cash, and no material debt. Having already met the patent milestone requirement, BioTime will soon receive $400,000 in addition to the $1,000,000 signing fee payable under licensing agreement. Abelson overlooked our rights offering which closed in February 1997 and provided an additional $5.6 million as described in the footnotes to our latest 10Q filing. He also failed to mention that every officer and director of BioTime participated in that rights offering, investing more than $1 million in the company's stock.

Finally, we would like to correct the misleading innuendo regarding our participation in Cryomedical Sciences, which we left 6 1/2 years ago. When we formed BioTime in the Fall of 1990 to develop our present line of products, we resigned from Cryomedical Sciences and sold all of our Cryomedical Sciences stock back to that company. Thus we had nothing to do with and did not participate in the stock run-up and decline which even Abelson admits occurred years later.

CONTACT: BioTime, Inc.

Victoria Bellport, 510/845-9535