ROSEVILLE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dutton Associates updates its coverage of Pluristem Life Sciences (Nasdaq:PSTI - News) maintaining its rating of Speculative Buy with a $6.50 price target. The report by Dutton senior analyst Denise Resnik, M.S. is available at www.jmdutton.com as well as from First Call, Bloomberg, Zacks, Reuters, Knobias, and other leading financial portals.

Pluristem Therapeutics has changed its corporate strategic priorities from using its innovative cell therapy technology to commercialize the use of blood from the umbilical cord and the post-birth placenta as an alternative to stem cells harvested from donor bone marrow to exploring the use of the same cell therapy technology to expand placental mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as a treatment for critical limb ischemia (CLI) secondary to peripheral artery disease. While the Company will continue to explore the use of expanding MSCs from the placenta and co-transplanting them with hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from umbilical cord blood to improve the engraftment process for a host of indications currently being treated by bone marrow transplant, it believes that it will enjoy more rapid success from the CLI program that does not rely on the often-uncertain quality of umbilical cord blood necessary for its bone marrow transplant (BMT) program. While validation of the Company’s technology is still in the preclinical stage, we believe that, If The Technology Proves To Be Successful, The Impact On The Patient Population Requiring CLI Therapy Would Be Significant, and if successful, would allow Pluristem to re-address its BMT program, especially as therapeutic uses for BMT continue to be developed. If the Company can achieve the 12-month milestones it has set for itself, including attaining regulatory permission to conduct its first Phase I clinical trials for both of its products and the initiation of these trials, we believe the shares will respond favorably.