COLUMBIA, Md., Dec. 02, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Osiris Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSIR) (the “Company”) today provided an update regarding the status of its compliance with the Listing Rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market (“NASDAQ”).

As previously disclosed, the Company participated in a hearing before the NASDAQ Hearings Panel (the “Hearings Panel”) on November 10, 2016 in connection with the Company’s late filings and the Company’s anticipated financial restatement relating to prior periods. At the hearing, the Company requested that the Hearings Panel grant the Company additional time to file its delinquent reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and regain compliance with NASDAQ’s continued listing requirements.

On December 1, 2016, the Company received a decision letter from NASDAQ’s Office of General Counsel stating that the Hearings Panel has granted the Company’s request and, accordingly, the Company’s common stock will continue to trade on the NASDAQ Stock Market provided that the Company becomes current in its periodic filings with the SEC on or before March 10, 2017. The letter stated that March 10, 2017 represents the full extent of the Hearing Panel’s discretion to grant continued listing while the Company is non-compliant.

The Company is continuing to work diligently to complete its previously announced accounting reviews, restatement of prior period financial statements, transition to a new independent registered public accounting firm and 2015 audit so that it will be in a position to file its delinquent periodic reports with the SEC as soon as possible. However, there can be no assurance that the Company will be able to complete all of this work and become current in its SEC filings by March 10, 2017. If the Company is not able to file all of its delinquent periodic reports with the SEC by March 10, 2017, then the Hearings Panel will issue a final delist determination and the Company will be suspended from trading on the NASDAQ Stock Market. There can be no assurance regarding the timing or ultimate outcome of this process or the ability of the Company to successfully maintain its NASDAQ listing.

About Osiris Therapeutics

Osiris Therapeutics, Inc., based in Columbia, Maryland, is a world leader in researching, developing and marketing regenerative medicine products that improve health and lives of patients and lower overall healthcare costs. Having developed the world’s first approved stem cell drug, the company continues to advance its research and development in biotechnology by focusing on innovation in regenerative medicine – including bioengineering, stem cell research and viable tissue based products. Osiris has achieved commercial success with products in orthopaedics, sports medicine and wound care, including BIO^4®, Cartiform^®, Grafix^®, TruSkin ™ and Stravix™. Osiris, Grafix, and Cartiform are registered trademarks of Osiris Therapeutics, Inc.; TruSkin and Stravix are trademarks of Osiris Therapeutics, Inc. BIO^4® is a trademark of Howmedica Osteonics Corp.More information can be found on the company’s website, www.Osiris.com. (OSIR-G)

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements about our expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, intentions, assumptions and other statements that are not historical facts. Words or phrases such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “ongoing,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project” or similar words or phrases, or the negatives of those words or phrases, may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not necessarily mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Examples of forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, statements regarding any of the following: the outcome of the NASDAQ delisting process; the ability of the Company to successfully maintain its NASDAQ listing; the outcome of the restatement, including the materiality, significance, nature, subject matter, timing or quantitative effects of the Company’s restated financial statements; the timing of the transition to a new independent registered public accounting firm; the completion of the audit of the Company’s 2015 financial statements; and the timing of the filing of the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2016, June 30, 2016 and September 30, 2016. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or implied by the forward-looking statements. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements for many reasons, including the factors described in the section entitled “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and other Periodic Reports filed on Form 10-Q, with the SEC. Accordingly, you should not unduly rely on these forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly revise any forward-looking statement to reflect circumstances or events after the date of this press release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

For additional information, please contact:



Diane Savoie

Osiris Therapeutics, Inc.

(443) 545-1834

OsirisPR@Osiris.com

Source: Osiris Therapeutics, Inc.

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By Reuters – December 2, 2016

A federal jury in Dallas on Thursday ordered Johnson & Johnson and its DePuy Orthopaedics unit to pay more than $1 billion to six plaintiffs who said they were injured by Pinnacle hip implants.

The jurors found that the metal-on-metal Pinnacle hip implants were defectively designed and that the companies failed to warn consumers about the risks.

J&J JNJ 0.47% , which faces more than 8,000 lawsuits over the hip implants, said in a statement it would immediately appeal the verdict and was committed to defending itself and DePuy from further litigation over the Pinnacle devices.

The six plaintiffs awarded more than $1 billion are California residents who were implanted with the hip devices and experienced tissue death, bone erosion and other injuries they attributed to design flaws. Plaintiffs claimed the companies promoted the devices as lasting longer than devices that include ceramic or plastic materials.

Both companies denied any wrongdoing stemming from the development and marketing of the devices.

According to plaintiff’s lawyer Mark Lanier, the total verdict of $1.041 billion included $32 million in compensatory damages. The rest were punitive damages.

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BY JOHNNY MAGDALENO | DECEMBER 2, 2016

Poverty rates have dropped in Memphis, Tennessee, since the start of the decade, but it’s still one of the poorest large urban areas in the U.S. With 18.4 percent of its 1.3 million residents taking home annual incomes below the federal poverty threshold, it’s second only to Tucson, Arizona, when it comes to lacking opportunity for a living wage.

One local industry could help: medical device manufacturing. And the city was just awarded nearly $6 million from the U.S. Department of Labor to help fortify the system of community colleges, manufacturers and workforce organizations pulling talent from Memphis’ poorest communities to prep them for this booming sector.

Similar cash injections went to 22 similar efforts throughout the U.S. — 18 of which are urban areas with populations greater than 50,000 — as part of President Barack Obama’s community college reimbursement plan, called America’s Promise. The $111 million doled out during this round will help these cities build up the types of cross-sector workforce programs backed by federal law through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, enacted back in 2014. It’ll also help cover community college costs for disadvantaged workers looking for additional training.

Pauline Vernon, of the Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competitive Workforce (GMACWorkforce), says her region has been building a pipeline around medical device makers for the past few years. Shelby County hosts the second-largest cluster of these manufacturers in the U.S.

Part of the reason why the region is so attractive to this sector? Expediency. Memphis is home to FedEx’s World Hub, the company’s largest express shipping location.

“If somebody needs a knee replacement on the West Coast tomorrow, it can be manufactured here today and in the surgeon’s hands tomorrow,” says Vernon. “And that’s the basis for a lot of our biomedical facilities here.”

She says this Department of Labor support was “a pretty easy award” to get. Seventeen of the region’s medical device manufacturers formed a nonprofit in March 2015 to tackle the same issues at the core of the America’s Promise program. That coalition, the Greater Memphis Medical Device Council (GMMDC), brought a laundry list of job demands to Vernon and her co-workers.

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