It’s been an up-and-down ride for Vadnais Heights–based BioE since it began in 1993, but these days, the company’s two leading products—a unique stem cell and a one-of-a-kind cord-blood processing system—are giving CEO Michael Haider and his 19-member team more thrills than chills.
“We experience fear and excitement every day,” says Haider with a smile. “We’re concentrating on what we do well, and that’s the development side of cell technologies.”
When Haider joined four-employee BioE as COO in 1998, the company had “trouble paying the light bill,” he says. “They’re scientists—and I’m a business guy. We talked a very different language.”
Haider’s background positioned him well for the struggle. He’d spent 10 years in corporate finance at Medtronic before taking his leap into entrepreneurism at several local technology companies.
At BioE, one of his first missions was to convince his scientific colleagues that a patent strategy was preferable to trying to keep trade secrets. BioE’s initial products were reagents—biological chemicals that facilitated understanding of cells and their behavior. The company had squandered the chance to patent much of its existing technology. With an eye toward the future, however, Haider enlisted the Minneapolis office of a Boston-based intellectual property firm, Fish & Richardson, to help the company file the first of many patent applications in 1999.
In 2001, just as Haider took the helm as president and CEO, BioE lost its biggest reagent client, one that provided 80 percent of its revenue. It was a time of transition—and decision. Says Haider: “We needed to rethink our strategy ... to select markets that didn’t already have a lot of big players ... that might take longer to yield results but would be better in the long run.”
Haider and his team made the risky decision to move ahead with the development of a brand-new product for a relatively new market—the PrepaCyte®-CB Cord Blood Processing System—and the timing couldn’t have been better.
Using a reagent, this simple-to-use system separates white blood cells, including valuable stem cells, from human umbilical-cord blood, a system that is fast becoming the treatment of choice—over bone-marrow transplants—for cancers and other life-threatening conditions in both children and adults. Cord blood’s advantages over marrow are significant, including its ability to be cryogenically preserved and banked, rendering it ready for immediate use. According to Haider, the National Marrow Donor Program, which also registers cord blood, says that this year the use of cord blood will surpass that of bone marrow.
In May 2007, BioE market-released its PrepaCyte®-CB at the 5th Annual International Umbilical Cord Blood Symposium in Los Angeles. Haider says its primary customers will be the 250 cord-blood banks throughout the world—and that number is expanding rapidly.
And that’s not even BioE’s big news.
In 2004, while identifying cells in the PrepaCyte®-CB’s cryogenic bag, BioE scientists discovered its Multi-Lineage Progenitor Cell™ (MLPC™), a stem cell extraordinaire.
“It’s the only stem cell that’s commercially clonable,” says Haider. Unlike other stem cells, which become abnormal when cloned in great quantities, the MLPC remains stable. And it can differentiate into many common cell and tissue types, including neural stem cells; nerve, lung, and liver cells; skeletal muscle; fat and bone cells; and blood vessels.
Today, BioE licenses the cell to academia and industry for research, regenerative medicine, and drug development, and it also sponsors research in areas such as Type-1 Diabetes, solid cancer tumors, leukemia treatments, and spinal-cord injuries.
Haider expects the MLPC to bring great things to BioE—and to the world. “We thought it best to get our cells into the hands of those who can commercialize the technologies and get them to patients quickly—to extend lives and improve quality of life. That way, we can have a bigger impact.”
