EAST WHITELAND -- Often, Anne Faulkner Schoemaker receives visitors in the office that was once her husband‘s -- now empty save for framed newspaper articles about him, barely used office furniture and several paintings from his native Holland.

Schoemaker (pronounced shoe-MAA-ker) is the widow of Hubert J.P. Schoemaker, the biotechnology visionary who died last year at age 55 after a protracted battle with brain cancer.

He was the founder of Centocor Inc. and later started Neuronyx Inc., a stem-cell science and research company based in the Great Valley Corporate Center here, with former Paine Webber rainmaker Stephen Webster.

His 58-year-old widow, a Juilliard School-trained pianist but also steeped in the health care and medical fields after stints with the Children‘s Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania and the Wistar Institute, became interim chief executive of the privately held Neuronyx late last year.

Asked how long she might stay at Neuronyx, Schoemaker, a sylph of a woman with sapphire blue eyes, hedged her bets.

”My goal is to add as much value as I can to this company,“ she responded. ”Once an 18-month clinical trial of our stem-cell therapy to regenerate damaged heart tissue begins, we‘ll need $40 million to $50 million. We‘ll need a corporate partner to help us.“ Schoemaker kept open the possibility that Neuronyx may eventually go public, as one of its major competitor, Osiris Therapeutics of Baltimore, Md., did last fall.

Called NX-CP105 in its experimental phase, the product that could well become the Neuronyx poster child involves injecting stem cells harvested from adult bone marrow, via a catheter, several places in a patient‘s heart to spur tissue there to regenerate and repair itself.

Currently, Neuronyx is testing the product in six patients at the Arizona Health Institute and Hospital in Phoenix, where the company is hopeful to treat 12 more by year-end. More clinical trials will take place at the Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California and the Minneapolis Heart Institute.

Early results are promising, but, as Schoemaker cautioned, ”Our challenge and also our profound obligation is to attribute these changes to our product. Only after we have done ... testing in many patients will we be able to make that claim. For now, the data encourages us to go forward to develop a meaningful treatment that will improve the lives of patients with heart disease and take enormous costs out of the health care system.“ Patients are treated with NX-CP105 30 to 60 days following a heart attack and other, more traditional treatments, Joe Wagner explained earlier; he is Neuronyx vice president of cellular therapy.

When someone has a heart attack, ”the tissue dies and never regenerates,“ he noted. ”In its place, you get a solid scar, which serves some function but doesn‘t pump blood or beat. This tissue grows, enlargement of the heart is the result, and you have the first step toward congestive heart disease.“ Five million Americans suffer from heart failure today, he went on to say. The condition causes 250,000 deaths a year and generates 400,000 to 700,000 new patients annually.

Schoemaker lauded her late husband for choosing adult stem cells, versus those derived from more controversial umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid and other sources. ”It (adult cells) was an uncomplicated place to go,“ she said. ”He had scientific belief in the utility of stem cells.“ Hubert Schoemaker‘s original intention for Neuronyx was to apply stem-cell therapies to neurological disease. His wife recalled last week that he would always say, ”If I can help one person get out of a wheelchair and walk again, I will have done something worthwhile.“ Stem-cell treatments might eventually have great success in combating stroke, a complicated event that resists easy treatment, Schoemaker pointed out. They might also be used in wound repair and healing, with a stem cell-impregnated bandage helping to regenerate tissue without scarring.

Stem cell products notched $16.4 million in sales last year and are expected to more than double to $35 million in 2007, according to Robin R. Young, a medical industry analyst whose consulting firm bears his name. He told attendees at a recent Stem Cell Summit in San Diego that more than 200 companies are preparing products for commercialization, especially in the area of joint and cartilage repair cases.

”While orthopedics is the hotbed of stem cell product use today in the United States,“ Young told the assembled throng, ”many companies are progressing rapidly with their development of products to treat cardiac,urologic and other indications.“ But public markets aren‘t that friendly to biotech companies right now, Schoemaker pointed out. ”The person who will eventually sit in that chair,“ she said --- pointing to her husband‘s vacant one -- ”must be able to work well with Wall Street. Stem cells are the ’next big thing.‘“ To contact staff writer Sarah E. Moran, send an e-mail to smoran@dailylocal.com.