Telomerase is an enzyme that is expressed in nearly all cancer cells, but not in most normal cells. They hope to kill cancer cells in which telomerase is abnormally expressed by inhibiting or targeting telomerase, and to diagnose cancer by measuring telomerase activity.

Genron is developing cell-based therapeutics for several diseases based on differentiated cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), including neural cells for spinal cord injury and Parkinson's disease, cardiomyocytes for heart disease, pancreatic islet cells for diabetes, osteoblasts for osteoporosis, chondrocytes for osteoarthritis, and hematopoietic cells for blood diseases and to prevent immune rejection of the other cell types. They have developed proprietary methods to grow, maintain and scale up undifferentiated hESCs and differentiate them into therapeutically relevant cells.

They are now testing six different therapeutic cell types in animal models. In three of these cell types, they have preliminary results indicating efficacy as evidenced by functional recovery of the treated animals. After completion of these studies, they expect to begin one or more Phase I clinical trials; as of July 2004, it appears likely that the first clinical trial will focus on treatment for acute spinal cord injury. They own or have licenses to intellectual property covering core inventions and critical enabling technology in this field.