Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Announces New Findings Supporting Its HAAH Oncology Program

Findings Further Support HAAH as Both a Drug Target and a Biomarker for Invasive Cancers

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BW HealthWire)--July 18, 2001--Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that new data supporting its Oncology Program were presented at recent scientific conferences. The Company's Oncology Program targets the enzyme Human Aspartyl (Asparaginyl) Beta-Hydroxylase or HAAH.

HAAH is over-expressed in all invasive tumors tested to date, including cancers of the bile duct, pancreas, breast, ovary, liver, colon, and brain. HAAH over-expression has been detected in greater than 95% of tumor specimens tested to date (n>200) and has not been detected in adjacent normal tissue (n>100). HAAH is expressed at higher levels in the fringes of tumors where growth and spread of the cancer occurs.

The first abstract, entitled "Role of Aspartyl (Asparaginyl) Beta-Hydroxylase (AAH) in Neuroblastoma Migration," was accepted for presentation at the 90th Annual Meeting of the United States & Canadian Academy of Pathology in Atlanta, Georgia and published in Laboratory Investigation (Volume 81, Number 1).

The abstract described the transfection of neuroblastoma cells with the HAAH gene, and the measurement of their motility using Boyden chamber-type cell culture inserts. Over-expression of HAAH resulted in increased neuroblastoma cell migration and increased Notch expression.

The Company's lead drug candidate, PAN-346, is an antisense-based drug that works at the gene expression level to interrupt and inhibit the process by which HAAH is produced. Antisense drugs are inherently more selective and, as a result, more effective and less toxic than traditional drugs. PAN-346 has been shown in vitro to be a highly effective inhibitor of HAAH expression and activity.

The Company has finalized a Drug Development Plan for PAN-346 that includes the design of clinical trials for the treatment of patients with newly diagnosed as well as recurring tumor for both glioblastoma multiforme and anaplastic astrocytoma, the two most fatal primary brain cancers.

The second abstract, entitled "Potential Biomarkers for Detecting Pancreatic Carcinoma," was presented at the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Gastroenterological Association in Atlanta, Georgia, and published in the journal Gastroenterology (Volume 120, Number 5).

The abstract described the immunostaining of histological sections of pancreatic carcinoma and normal pancreatic tissue with FB-50, one of the Company's anti-HAAH monoclonal antibodies. The staining was graded for intensity and distribution. All 19 (100%) surgical specimens of pancreatic carcinoma had intense levels of immunoreactivity with involvement of at least 75% of the tumor in 18/19 (95%) cases. This data demonstrates that HAAH is potentially an excellent biomarker for pancreatic carcinoma while being an important and novel drug target.

Pancreatic carcinoma is a major public health problem and represents the fourth leading cause of death due to cancer. The lack of reliable biomarkers for this disease adds to the difficulty in rendering early diagnosis and in patient management.

The Company is continuing to develop HAAH-based assays for use in pre-clinical drug development, human clinical trials, and as diagnostic tests. HAAH-based diagnostic tests, such as for pancreatic carcinoma, may make it possible to detect disease at pre-clinical stages, providing physicians with more treatment options and patients with greatly improved clinical outcomes.

Background on HAAH Oncology Program

The Company has a License Agreement and Collaborative Research Agreement with Rhode Island Hospital/Brown University for HAAH. These agreements give the Company exclusive worldwide rights to the technology and establish a seamless working collaboration between the groups that grants the Company exclusive rights to all future developments through the collaboration.

The Company has also announced a collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to engineer all-human, single-chain, ultra-high affinity antibodies directed to HAAH for use in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer.

Additional aspects of the expression, measurement, and biological effect of HAAH that the Company believes make it a suitable target for cancer therapy and diagnosis include:

• HAAH is over-expressed on the surface of cancer cells, facilitating detection, drug delivery, and enzyme inhibition.
• In laboratory studies, normal cells that are stimulated to express HAAH undergo malignant transformation and exhibit increased motility.
• Even partial inhibition of HAAH expression has a beneficial effect on tumor cells, causing them to revert to a more normal phenotype.
• In studies conducted in nude mice, all animals that received injections of cells expressing high levels of HAAH developed tumors at the injection site.

"The growing body of evidence continues to support HAAH's role as an important component of tumor development, progression, and invasiveness," stated Hossein A. Ghanbari, Ph.D., President and CEO of the Company. "HAAH's utility as both a drug target and a biomarker for invasive cancers presents extraordinary partnership opportunities. We are currently seeking partners to facilitate and expedite the development of products based on this technology."

About Panacea Pharmaceuticals

Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a development stage biopharmaceutical company focused on utilizing functional genomics and proteomics to develop therapeutics and diagnostics for cancer. The Company's technology pipeline includes drug development programs for central nervous system diseases, particularly Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.