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Geron Appoints Hoyoung Huh and Robert Spiegel to Its Board of Directors

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  Published in Health and Fitness on Thursday, May 20th 2010 at 4:41 GMT by Market Wire
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MENLO PARK, Calif.--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--Geron Corporation (Nasdaq: GERN) today announced the appointment of Hoyoung Huh, M.D., Ph.D. and Robert J. Spiegel, M.D., FACP to its board of directors.

"Dr. Huh and Dr. Spiegel are both highly qualified to make important contributions to our clinical development strategies and we are pleased to welcome them to the board."

aGeron is pleased to add two additional directors with significant operating and product development experience as the company advances its clinical trials in oncology through Phase II and moves its cell therapies into the clinic,a said Alex Barkas, chairman of Gerona™s board of directors. aDr. Huh and Dr. Spiegel are both highly qualified to make important contributions to our clinical development strategies and we are pleased to welcome them to the board.a

Drs. Huh and Spiegel join Gerona™s existing board members: board chair Alexander E. Barkas, Ph.D., Karin Eastham, Edward V. Fritzky, Thomas Hofstaetter, Ph.D., Charles J. Homcy, M.D., Thomas D. Kiley, and Gerona™s president and CEO, Thomas B. Okarma, Ph.D., M.D.

Hoyoung Huh

Dr. Huh is chairman of the board of directors of BiPar Sciences, a wholly-owned subsidiary and west coast innovation center for sanofi-aventis since the April 2009 merger, and serves on the boards of directors for Epizyme, Inc., and Jennerex, Inc. Dr. Huh was formerly on the board of directors of Facet Biotech and was president and chief executive officer of BiPar Sciences. Prior to BiPar, he was a member of the board of directors, chief operating officer, and head of the PEGylation business unit at Nektar Therapeutics. Dr. Huh was a partner at McKinsey & Company, where he was in the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical sectors. Prior to McKinsey, he held positions as a physician and researcher at Cornell University Medical College and Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Huh holds an M.D. and Ph.D. from Cornell University Medical College and Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and an A.B. in biochemistry from Dartmouth College.

Robert Spiegel

After 26 years with the Schering-Plough Corporation, Dr. Spiegel retired in 2009 as chief medical officer and senior vice president of the Schering-Plough Research Institute, the pharmaceutical research arm of the Schering-Plough Corporation. He initially joined Schering-Plough as director of clinical research for oncology and rose to hold various positions including senior director of clinical research for oncology and anti-infectives, vice president of clinical research and senior vice president of worldwide clinical research. Prior to Schering-Plough, Dr, Spiegel held academic positions at the National Cancer Institute and New York University Cancer Center. Following a residency in internal medicine, he completed a fellowship in medical oncology at the National Cancer Institute. He currently is an adjunct assistant professor at New York University Medical Center. Dr. Spiegel holds an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Yale University.

About Geron

Geron is developing first-in-class biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of cancer and chronic degenerative diseases, including spinal cord injury, heart failure and diabetes. The company is advancing an anti-cancer drug and a cancer vaccine that target the enzyme telomerase through multiple clinical trials in different cancers. For more information, visit [ www.geron.com ].