STEMCELL Technologies Inc. to Launch TeSR-E8 - a Novel Medium for Human Embryonic and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells - and New STEMdiff Kits for Differentiation of these cell types

STEMCELL Technologies Inc. (STEMCELL) announced today its plans to release a series of new products to advance research and translational applications for human pluripotent stem cells.

These novel products, which will be launched at the International Society for Stem Cell Research 2012 Conference in Japan, include:

TeSR™-E8™: a highly defined feeder-free culture medium for human embryonic stem cells (ES cells) and human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). TeSR-E8 contains only the most essential 8 components required for maintenance of ES cells and iPS cells, providing a simpler medium for the culture of pluripotent stem cells. It is based on the E8 formulation published in Nature Methods (G. Chen et al., Nature Methods 8, 424 (2011)). This lab previously developed the mTeSR™1 and TeSR™2 feeder-free culture media, which were licensed and commercialized by STEMCELL Technologies and are now the most widely-published feeder-free culture media for human pluripotent stem cells. TeSR-E8 can be used with a surface coating of BD Matrigel™ hESC-qualified Matrix or vitronectin, as described in this publication. It will be available for purchase in September 2012 under the license agreement that STEMCELL has with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).

STEMdiff™ Definitive Endoderm / Cardiomyocyte / Hematopoietic kits: the STEMdiff product line is significantly expanded with the world's first complete commercial kits for directed hPSC differentiation to definitive endoderm, cardiomyocyte and hematopoietic lineages. These new kits will be available for purchase in October 2012. STEMdiff products provide robust reagents and protocols to reliably differentiate hPSC to various lineages and are optimized for use with mTeSR™1 and TeSR™2 feeder-free culture media.

"We are delighted to build on our track record for providing high quality cell culture media to stem cell scientists, by introducing new products that work as an integrated system," said Dr. Allen Eaves, CEO and President of STEMCELL Technologies. "We are excited to give scientists products that are designed to work together and extend from reprogramming through to differentiation."

By adding TeSR-E8 and the new STEMdiff kits to its portfolio, STEMCELL Technologies continues to provide the most complete, defined system of integrated tools for human pluripotent stem cell research. These high-quality reagents for defined pluripotent cell culture increase experimental reproducibility, eliminate variable biologic elements in the culture media and increase clinical relevance for culture of ES cells and iPS cells.

Media Contact:

Simon Hilcove

604-675-7898 / simon.hilcove@stemcell.com

About STEMCELL Technologies Inc.

STEMCELL Technologies Inc. is a leader in the development and marketing of specialty cell culture media, cell separation products and ancillary reagents for life science research. Driven by science and enabled by close interactions with global leaders in cell biology and medicine, STEMCELL delivers over 1000 products to research scientists in more than 70 countries worldwide. To learn more about how STEMCELL helps to make research work, visit www.stemcell.com.

About WARF

Since its founding in 1925 to manage a University of Wisconsin–Madison discovery that eventually eliminated the childhood disease rickets, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has been working with industry to transform university research into products that benefit society. As a private, nonprofit organization, WARF accomplishes its mission of supporting scientific research by patenting and licensing inventions arising from university discoveries. Since making its first grant of $1,200 in 1928, WARF has contributed more than $1 billion to UW–Madison through annual 'margin of excellence' grants and other funding. For more information, visit www.warf.org.