MIAMI, June 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Longeveron Inc. (NASDAQ: LGVN), a clinical stage biotechnology company developing cellular therapy for life-threatening, rare pediatric and chronic aging-related conditions, today announced that the Company has been granted Small or Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) status by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which offers significant benefits leading up to and following drug regulatory approval.

The SME program is an initiative by the EMA to address the particular needs of small and medium size companies developing medicinal products in Europe. Companies that are granted SME designation are able to seek scientific advice, protocol assistance, and other information and training from dedicated EMA personnel during the clinical development process. Companies with this designation can engage in early dialogue with the EMA multidisciplinary team and discuss regulatory strategy with the goal of mitigating delay and accelerating patient access to lifesaving treatments. In addition, SME designation gives companies reduced administrative fees throughout the development process.

According to the EMA, SME Designation has allowed for improved success rate for organizations seeking regulatory approvals:

  • the success rate for SME marketing authorization applications for human medicines more than doubled, reaching 89% in 2020;
  • more than 4 in 10 medicines selected for EMA’s PRIME: priority medicines scheme were from SMEs;
  • SMEs developed nearly 20% of all human medicines recommended for authorization in 2020; half of these target a rare disease.

About laromestrocel (Lomecel-B®)
Laromestrocel is a living cell product made from specialized cells isolated from the bone marrow of young healthy adult donors. These specialized cells, known as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), are essential to our endogenous biological repair mechanism. MSCs have been shown to perform a number of complex functions in the body, including the formation of new tissue. They also have been shown to respond to sites of injury or disease and secrete bioactive factors that are immunomodulatory and regenerative. We believe that laromestrocel MSCs may have multiple potential mechanisms of action that may lead to anti-inflammatory, pro-vascular regenerative responses, and therefore may have broad application for a range of rare and aging related diseases.

About Longeveron Inc.
Longeveron is a clinical stage biotechnology company developing regenerative medicines to address unmet medical needs. The Company’s lead investigational product is laromestrocel (Lomecel-B™), an allogeneic mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapy product isolated from the bone marrow of young, healthy adult donors. Laromestrocel has multiple potential mechanisms of action encompassing pro-vascular, pro-regenerative, anti-inflammatory, and tissue repair and healing effects with broad potential applications across a spectrum of disease areas. Longeveron is pursuing four pipeline indications: hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), Alzheimer’s disease, Pediatric Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM) and Aging-related Frailty. Laromestrocel development programs have received five distinct and important FDA designations: for the HLHS program - Orphan Drug designation, Fast Track designation, and Rare Pediatric Disease designation; and, for the AD program - Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation and Fast Track designation. For more information, visit www.longeveron.com or follow Longeveron on LinkedIn , X , and Instagram .

Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which reflect management’s current expectations, assumptions, and estimates of future operations, performance and economic conditions, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that could cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those anticipated, expressed, or implied by the statements made herein. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “contemplate,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expects,” “intend,” “looks to,” “may,” “on condition,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “preliminary,” “project,” “see,” “should,” “target,” “will,” “would,” or the negative thereof or comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words, or by discussion of strategy or goals or other future events, circumstances, or effects. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements in this release include, but are not limited to, the ability of our clinical trials to demonstrate safety and efficacy of our product candidates, and other positive results; our ability to successfully transition toward a more capital-efficient, asset-light operating model; our ability to secure one or more strategic licensing partnerships for our stem cell therapy laromestrocel in our development programs; the ability to reach alignment with the FDA on a potential path toward regulatory approval; receipt of trial results and other available evidence sufficient to support the Company filing a BLA following the readout of top-line results of the ELPIS II data; the timing and focus of our ongoing and future preclinical studies and clinical trials, and the reporting of data from those studies and trials; market and other conditions, our cash position and need to raise additional capital, the difficulties we may face in obtaining access to capital, and the dilutive impact it may have on our investors; our financial performance, and ability to continue as a going concern; the period over which we estimate our existing cash and cash equivalents will be sufficient to fund our future operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements; the ability of our clinical trials to demonstrate safety and efficacy of our investigational product candidates, and other positive results; the timing and focus of our ongoing and future preclinical studies and clinical trials, and the reporting of data from those studies and trials; the size of the market opportunity for certain of our investigational product candidates, including our estimates of the number of patients who suffer from the diseases we are targeting; our ability to scale production and commercialize the investigational product candidate for certain indications; the success of competing therapies that are or may become available; the beneficial characteristics, safety, efficacy and therapeutic effects of our investigational product candidates; our ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval of our investigational product candidates in the U.S. and other jurisdictions; our plans relating to the further development of our investigational product candidates, including additional disease states or indications we may pursue; our plans and ability to obtain or protect intellectual property rights, including extensions of existing patent terms where available and our ability to avoid infringing the intellectual property rights of others; the need to hire additional personnel and our ability to attract and retain such personnel; and our estimates regarding expenses, future revenue, capital requirements and needs for additional financing.

Further information relating to factors that may impact the Company’s results and forward-looking statements are disclosed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Longeveron’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 17, 2026, its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and its Current Reports on Form 8-K. The Company operates in highly competitive and rapidly changing environment; therefore, new factors may arise, and it is not possible for the Company’s management to predict all such factors that may arise nor assess the impact of such factors or the extent to which any individual factor or combination thereof, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release based on information available as of the date of this press release, are inherently uncertain, and the Company disclaims any intention or obligation, other than imposed by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Investor and Media Contact:
Derek Cole
Investor Relations Advisory Solutions
[email protected]