CLEVELAND, July 2, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Athersys, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATHX) today announced it was added to the Russell Microcap(r) Index when Russell Investments reconstituted its comprehensive family of U.S. indexes on June 27, 2008.
According to the Russell Investment Group, the Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for both passive and active investment strategies. An industry-leading $4.4 trillion in assets currently are benchmarked to them.
"We believe the selection of Athersys to the Russell Microcap Index represents a meaningful milestone for our company and shareholders," said Gil Van Bokkelen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Athersys. "We believe that inclusion in this index will further increase our visibility and exposure with institutional investors and index fund managers as well as contribute to enhanced liquidity."
Membership in the Russell Microcap, which remains in place for one year, means automatic inclusion in the appropriate growth and value style indexes. Russell determines membership for its equity indexes primarily by objective, market-capitalization rankings and style attributes.
Annual reconstitution of Russell indexes captures the 4,000 largest U.S. stocks as of the end of May, ranking them by total market capitalization to create the Russell 3000(r) Index and Russell Microcap. These investment tools originated from Russell's multi-manager investment business in the early 1980s when the company saw the need for a more objective, market-driven set of benchmarks in order to evaluate outside investment managers.
Total returns data for the Russell Microcap and other Russell Indexes is available at http://www.russell.com/Indexes/performance/daily_total_returns_us.asp.
About Athersys
Athersys is a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of therapeutic product candidates designed to extend and enhance the quality of human life. In addition to its lead product candidate, ATHX-105 for the treatment of obesity, the company is developing other orally active pharmaceutical product candidates for the treatment of metabolic and central nervous system disorders, utilizing proprietary technologies. Athersys is also developing MultiStem(r), a patented, adult-derived "off-the-shelf" stem cell platform for multiple disease indications, including damage caused by myocardial infarction, bone marrow transplantation/oncology support, ischemic stroke and other indications.
The Athersys, Inc. logo is available at http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=4548
About Russell
Russell Investments aims to improve financial security for people by providing strategic advice, world-class implementation, state-of-the-art performance benchmarks, and a range of institutional-quality investment products. With more than $213 billion in assets under management, Russell serves individual, institutional and advisor clients in more than 40 countries. Russell provides access to some of the world's best money managers. It helps investors put this access to work in corporate defined benefit and defined contribution plans, and in the life savings of individual investors.
Founded in 1936, Russell is a subsidiary of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. Headquartered in Tacoma, Wash., U.S., Russell has principal offices in Amsterdam, Auckland, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Melbourne, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements relate to, among other things, the visibility and exposure that we may receive, as well as any additional liquidity in our common stock, as a result of being included in the Russell Microcap Index. We have attempted to identify forward-looking statements by using such words as "anticipates," "believes," "can," "continue," "could," "estimates," "expects," "intends," "may," "plans," "potential," "should," "will," or other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are only predictions and are largely based on our current expectations. A number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors could affect the accuracy of these statements. Some of the risks that we face that could cause actual results to differ materially from those implied by forward-looking statements, including that we do not receive the anticipated visibility and exposure or liquidity in our common stock, are the risks and uncertainties inherent in the process of discovering, developing, and commercializing products that are safe and effective for use as human therapeutics, including the uncertainty regarding market acceptance of our product candidates and our ability to generate revenues. These risks may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements to differ materially from any future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Other important factors to consider in evaluating our forward-looking statements include: general price and volume fluctuations in the stock market; the possibility of delays in, adverse results of, and excessive costs of the development process; changes in external market factors; changes in our industry's overall performance; changes in our business strategy; our ability to protect our intellectual property portfolio; our possible inability to realize commercially valuable discoveries in our collaborations with pharmaceutical and other biotechnology companies; our possible inability to execute our strategy due to changes in our industry or the economy generally; changes in productivity and reliability of suppliers; and the success of our competitors and the emergence of new competitors. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements contained in this press release, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.