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The Interview
DR. ROBIN L. SMITH CEO of
“We are unique in the industry because we leverage the combination of a therapeutic development business and revenue-generating service provider business that provides us with unique capabilities for cost effective in-house product development and immediate revenue and cash flow generation.”
R
obin L. Smith, M.D., M.B.A has been Chairman and CEO of NeoStem, Inc. since 2006. She is a physician and business executive with an extensive and diversified
background in health care, sales and marketing, business development and management.
“My previous experience includes serving as President and Chief Executive Officer of IP2M, a multi-platform media company specializing in healthcare, where during my tenure, the company was selected as being one of the 10 fastest growing technology companies in Houston. Prior to that, I held the position of Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for HealthHelp, Inc., a National Radiology Management company that managed a large percentage of the healthcare dollars spent by large insurance companies. I have acted as an advisor to, and investor in, both publicly traded and privately held companies that in most case, I have been involved in restructuring and/ or growing the businesses.
I have extensive experience serving in executive and board level capacities for various medical enterprises and healthcare-based entities. I currently serve on the Board of Trustees of the NYU Langone Medical Center and I am past Chairman of the Board of Directors for the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases. I also currently serve on the Board of Directors of the Science and Faith STOQ Foundation in Rome, as well as on the Capital Formation Committee of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine.
I earned my M.D. from Yale University and my M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business.”
What more can you tell us about NeoStem?
NeoStem is committed to pursuing the preservation and enhancement of human health through the development of cell based therapeutics that prevent, treat or cure disease. We are proud to be at the forefront of a paradigm shift in medicine toward cell therapy - a shift away from treating disease with drugs and toward treating disease with the body’s own cells. Our mission is to transform the future of medicine with innovative cell based therapies while providing development and manufacturing services that drive the industry forward.
Our story is the story of a company that seized the opportunity to be more than just a participant in the burgeoning cell therapy industry, instead choosing to be a driving force for growth and opportunity by leveraging a platform of expert capabilities for the manufacture of cell therapies across multiple internal and client development programs. As the cell therapy industry has grown over the past decade, NeoStem has transformed itself into a global leader in cell therapy research, development and manufacturing.
What makes NeoStem unique in this emerging industry?
We are unique in the industry because we leverage the combination
of a therapeutic development
business and revenue-generating service provider business that provides us with unique capabilities for cost effective in-house product development and immediate revenue and cash flow generation. This combination of business lines gives us a unique advantage in the industry.
On the therapeutics side of our business, we have clinical development programs in three distinct areas - Targeted Immunotherapy Program for cancer treatment, our CD34 Cell Program for ischemic repair, and our T Regulatory Cell Program for immune modulation.
For the service provider portion of our business, in 2011 NeoStem made the strategic acquisition of Progenitor Cell Therapy (PCT), an internationally recognized contract development and manufacturing organization. With PCT on board, we gained access to world-class development expertise and manufacturing capabilities for our own development pipeline, as well as the market-leading experience that PCT brings to the cell therapy industry as a whole. PCT is helping to strategically position NeoStem in a way that allows our company to participate in the cell therapy field on multiple levels as the industry evolves.
PCT has helped NeoStem create an engine for the efficient development of NeoStem’s own cell therapies. Recently, that engine has grown even stronger, with the establishment of PCT’s Engineering and Innovation Center, an initiative focused on helping clients and NeoStem’s own internal programs