Equity

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2012

Equity [Abstract]

Equity

7. Equity

Warrants

BioTime has issued warrants to purchase its common shares as payments for services and in connection to certain business acquisitions.  At September 30, 2012, 556,613 warrants to purchase common shares with an exercise price of $10.00 and a weighted average remaining contractual life of 1.57 years were outstanding.

Preferred Shares

BioTime is authorized to issue 1,000,000 shares of preferred stock.  The preferred shares may be issued in one or more series as the board of directors may by resolution determine.  The board of directors is authorized to fix the number of shares of any series of preferred shares and to determine or alter the rights, references, privileges, and restrictions granted to or imposed on the preferred shares as a class, or upon any wholly unissued series of any preferred shares.  The board of directors may, by resolution, increase or decrease (but not below the number of shares of such series then outstanding) the number of shares of any series of preferred shares subsequent to the issue of shares of that series.

As of September 30, 2012, BioTime has no issued and outstanding preferred shares.

Common Shares

BioTime is authorized to issue 75,000,000 common shares with no par value.  As of September 30, 2012, BioTime had 50,868,932 issued and 49,162,758 outstanding common shares.  The difference of 1,706,174 is attributed to treasury shares held by BioTime subsidiaries which are accounted for as treasury stock on the consolidated balance sheet.

During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2012, there were 78,541 and 98,541 options exercised at a weighted average exercise price of $3.46 and $2.91, respectively.

During the nine months ended September 30, 2012 and 2011, BioTime recognized stock-based compensation expenses of $1,441,135 and $1,255,911, respectively, due to stock options granted to employees and directors.  During the nine months ended September 30, 2012 and 2011, BioTime granted 280,000 and 301,593 options, respectively, under its 2002 Stock Option Plan.  During the nine months ended September 30, 2012 and 2011, 98,229 and 11,876 options were forfeited, respectively.

On August 24, 2012, we entered into a Controlled Equity Offering SM sales agreement with Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. ("Cantor"), pursuant to which we may offer and sell up to $25 million of our common shares, from time to time through Cantor acting as our sales agent.  The offer and sale of our shares through Cantor has been registered pursuant to registration statement filed under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.  The offering pursuant to the sales agreement will terminate upon the sale of all shares subject to the sales agreement or the earlier termination of the sales agreement as permitted by its terms.  There is no assurance that we will be able to sell any common shares through the offering at prices acceptable to us.

Under the sales agreement, Cantor may sell shares of our common stock by any method permitted by law deemed to be an "at-the-market" offering as defined in Rule 415 of the SEC Securities Act of 1933, as amended, including, but not limited to, sales made directly on NYSE MKT, on any other existing trading market for our common stock or to or through a market maker.  Cantor may also sell our shares under the sales agreement by any other method permitted by law, including in privately negotiated transactions.  Cantor has agreed in the sales agreement to use its commercially reasonable efforts to sell shares in accordance with our instructions (including any price, time or size limit or other customary parameters or conditions we may impose).