Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd has entered into a joint venture with Gamida-Cell Ltd. to develop and commercialize StemEx for the treatment of Leukaemia and Lymphoma. As part of the investment in Gamida-Cell in 2003, Teva held an option to jointly complete the development and globally commercialize StemEx. Teva will invest under certain conditions up to $25 million in the joint venture, Teva and Gamida-Cell jointly announced here.

Currently, only 15 per cent of patients requiring bone marrow transplantation, who do not have genetically matched relatives, are able to find matching donors. StemEx developed by Gamida-Cell, based on inventions made in the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, is cord blood highly enriched with stem cells. StemEx has the potential to fulfil a life saving unmet need for the majority of the patients who cannot find matching donors. This was shown by data from the recent Gamida-Cell Phase I/II study presented at the annual conference of the American Society for Haematology, a Teva pharma release said.

Israel Makov, president and CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries said, "The investment and exercise of the option with Gamida-Cell are part of Teva's strategy to enter into the field of Cell-Therapy. As part of this strategy, Teva led the Israeli cell therapy consortium "Genesis", and in addition to Gamida-Cell, invested in Proneuron, an Israeli company developing cell-based therapies for complete spinal cord injury."

Teva and Gamida plan to meet the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies in order to finalize the parameters for the pivotal study. The companies hope to initiate this study in the second half of 2005.