Mesoblast to establish ADR program

Adult stem cell company Mesoblast (ASX:MSV), which listed on the ASX six months ago, has appointed the Bank of New York to establish and maintain a Level 1 American Depositary Receipt (ADR) program.

"It's a facility that the Bank of New York provides to enable over the counter transactions, in effect for American institutions and private individuals that are only permitted to buy US securities," said Mesoblast chairman Michael Spooner.

Mesoblast already has strong commercial and strategic links to the US through its 33.3 per cent equity interest in New York-based cardiovascular company Angioblast Systems, said Spooner.

"I guess you can always say that the US market is larger, but there definitely is an understanding in that market place as to stem cell research," he said. "In effect, what we're trying to do is to bring together our exposure in the United States, together with the global nature of the stem cell work and make it available to the US investments community."

Spooner said that while Mesoblast is focused on its clinical and preclinical work, "what we do see, particularly when we talk to partner organisations and other interested institutions, is a definite interest in the story," he said. "We see this as part of a myriad of actions that the company has undertaken in order to increase liquidity and open up the market opportunity to global players."