SAN DIEGO, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 01/08/13 -- Medistem Inc. (PINKSHEETS: MEDS), announced today that John Chiplin, Ph.D., has been elected to its Board of Directors. Dr. Chiplin has over 25 years of experience as a biopharmaceutical executive and is currently CEO of Polynoma, a Phase III cancer vaccine company. Dr. Chiplin is also on the Board of Directors of Benitec, an RNA interference company with which Medistem has authored two peer-reviewed scientific publications. Dr. Chiplin's appointment expands the number of Medistem board members to six.

"To my knowledge Medistem is the only company in the history of cell therapy to take a cell from discovery to FDA clearance and clinical trials in the span of 4 years," said Dr. Chiplin. "I believe Medistem has an outstanding management team and have watched with great interest the company's evolution. I believe the company is well positioned to transform the stem cell industry and I look forward to helping shape the company's future as a member of the board."

Dr. Chiplin has broad-based experience in the life science and technology industries in both leadership and investment roles. Prior to Polynoma, Dr. Chiplin was founding CEO of Arana Therapeutics, a new generation antibody developer and a board member of Domantis, Inc., prior to the acquisition of these companies by Cephalon ($329 million) and GSK ($458 million), respectively. Prior to founding Arana, Dr. Chiplin was Managing Director of U.K. based ITI Life Sciences investment Fund. Dr. Chiplin holds Pharmacy and Doctoral degrees from the University of Nottingham, UK.

"We are delighted to have John join our board. The combination of scientific and business acumen, as well as practical knowledge of biotherapeutic development that John possesses is an extremely rare combination," said Alan Lewis, Ph.D., CEO of Medistem. "John has been involved in several successful exits, we are looking forward to synergizing with his talents at optimizing the value of our universal donor stem cell product."

About Medistem Inc.

Medistem Inc., is focused on the development of the Endometrial Regenerative Cell (ERC), a universal donor adult stem cell product. ERCs possess specialized abilities to stimulate new blood vessel growth and can differentiate into lung, liver, heart, brain, bone, cartilage, fat and pancreatic tissue. These unique properties have applications for treatment of critical limb ischemia (CLI), congestive heart failure (CHF), neurodegenerative diseases, liver failure, kidney failure, and diabetes. ERCs have been cleared by the FDA to begin studies in the United States.

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