HemaCare announces commercial cell therapy collection agreement with Dendreon

HemaCare Corporation (OTCBB: HEMA) today announced an agreement with Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN) to provide cellular collection services in Los Angeles and Maine for their new autologous cellular immunotherapy, PROVENGE^® (sipuleucel-T). This personalized medicine is Dendreon's lead product and is the first autologous cellular immunotherapy specifically designed to engage patients' own immune systems to treat cancer. HemaCare currently leverages its expertise in automated cell collection (apheresis) and processing of blood products to provide specialty collection services to Dendreon and other organizations conducting cell therapy research and clinical trials. This agreement with Dendreon is the first commercial cell therapy collection agreement for HemaCare.

“We are delighted to have been selected as one of Dendreon's collection partners for PROVENGE®. Specialty collection services are an increasingly important part of our business model because we directly leverage our personnel, equipment, facilities, licensure, manufacturing protocols, and hospital relationships to help advance cell therapy research and commercialization.”

Commenting on the new agreement, Pete van der Wal, HemaCare's President and CEO, stated, "We are delighted to have been selected as one of Dendreon's collection partners for PROVENGE^®. Specialty collection services are an increasingly important part of our business model because we directly leverage our personnel, equipment, facilities, licensure, manufacturing protocols, and hospital relationships to help advance cell therapy research and commercialization." Van der Wal continued, "This is an exciting field that holds much promise for HemaCare's long-term growth as well as for patients."