Arizona Biotech Funding News AmpliMed Secures $5 Million Series B Financing
TUCSON, Arizona AmpliMed, Amplimexon and Amplizone are United States trademarks of AmpliMed Corporation. Oncology Drug Development Company to Use Funds to Develop and Expand Portfolio of Anti-Cancer Therapies and Bring Drugs into Clinical Trials AmpliMed Corporation today announced the completion of a Series B Preferred private placement of approximately $5 million. Led by Biotech Insight Ventures, previous investors including InvestBio Ventures, Valley Ventures and Solstice Capital also participated in the round. To date, AmpliMed has raised more than $14 million in financing. "AmpliMed's impressive management team and outstanding group of scientists have accomplished significant milestones in the research and development of anti-cancer drugs, including the recent initiation of Phase I/II clinical trials for its lead drug Amplimexon (TM) for pancreatic cancer. We are delighted to participate again in this second round of financing," said Joel R. Smolen, Managing General Partner at Biotech Insight Management, L.L.C., which manages Biotech Insight Ventures L.P. "The fact that our investors continue to support AmpliMed underscores their commitment to our clinical development program and our pipeline of anti-cancer therapies. This is an exciting time for the company as our Amplimexon(TM) clinical development program is expanding rapidly and we plan to bring additional new drugs into clinical trials in the near future," said Robert A. Ashley, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of AmpliMed. "This funding will help us to continue these efforts as well as research additional late-stage clinical development opportunities." AmpliMed recently began a multi-center Phase I/II study to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of a combination of gemcitabine and Amplimexon in previously-untreated patients with advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Additional trials in patients with malignant melanoma, multiple myeloma, breast, lung and prostate cancer are planned in 2005. About Amplimexon(TM) Amplimexon is Amplimed's trademarked name for imexon injection, an injectable formulation of a cyanoaziridine compound which showed tantalizing evidence of activity in limited studies in lung cancer, melanoma and breast cancer that were documented in publications in the 1980s. The potential of imexon as a cancer drug was never fully explored, until 1994, when AmpliMed co-founding scientists Drs. Evan Hersh, David Alberts, Robert Dorr and William Remers initiated a program to decipher Amplimexon's novel mechanism of action. They discovered that the drug disrupted mitochondria, the energy producing factories of the cancer cells, resulting in the leakage of toxic substances which ultimately resulted in cell death. This led to the initiation in 2003 of an ongoing Phase I clinical study of the drug as a stand-alone therapy in late-stage cancer patients. Further preclinical research revealed that the combined use of Amplimexon and certain other chemotherapeutics resulted in a significant increase in efficacy compared to either drug alone. These findings are now being translated into a series of Phase I/II clinical studies of combination therapy in patients with various types of cancer. About AmpliMed Corporation AmpliMed Corporation was founded in 1989 with the support of the University of Arizona Technology Development Corporation and is focused on the clinical development of chemotherapeutic agents for cancer. AmpliMed's strategy is to develop anti-cancer drugs with novel mechanisms of action designed to overcome some of the limitations, such as myelosuppression (suppression of blood cell counts), multi-drug resistance (treatment-induced resistance to many cancer drugs) and cardiac toxicity, frequently associated with current cancer therapy. The company's lead product, Amplimexon(TM) (imexon inj.), is undergoing NDA-directed clinical development. Other products in the company's portfolio include Amplizone(TM), which is anticipated to enter the clinic early in 2006, and a portfolio of derivatives of both lead compounds for future development. AmpliMed Corporation is based in Tucson, Arizona and is on the Web at www.amplimed.com. 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