HANA BIOLOGICS' CYTOGRAFT HUMAN PRE-ISLET CELLS TO ENTER PHASE I

HANA BIOLOGICS' CYTOGRAFT HUMAN PRE-ISLET CELLS TO ENTER PHASE I clinicals for diabetes "later this year," the company announced in a May 4 interim earnings press release. For the three months ended March 31, Hana reported revenues of $1.2 mil., a 40% increase over the same 1986 period, and a net loss of $216,000, compared to net earnings of $64,000 a year ago. "The loss during the quarter is due to expenses in starting up and validating our new headquarters and manufacturing facility in Alameda [California], increased expenditures leading to initiation of clinical trials for our cell transplant product for the treatment of Type I diabetes, and greater investment spending in R&D, primarily in the Parkinson's disease program," Hana President Craig McMullen explained. Hana was founded in 1979 and raised approximately $24 mil. through an offering of 1.6 mil. shares in the spring of 1986. The company has been researching the use of islets derived from fetuses to restore normal glycemia. In its fiscal year ended June 30, 1986, the firm reported that it had "successfully demonstrated that normal human embryonic pancreatic cells could be carried through multiple passages (successive generations) in culture (outside the body); and further, that these proliferated human embryonic pancreatic cells would undergo normal development after transplanation in laboratory studies."