OncoGenex Technologies Inc. Withdraws Initial Public Offering

VANCOUVER, March 7 /PRNewswire/ - OncoGenex Technologies Inc. announced today that the company has withdrawn its registration statement from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, citing market conditions as a deterrent to completing its initial public offering.

"Due to the recent adverse market conditions, we have decided not to move forward with an initial public offering at this time," stated Scott Cormack, President and Chief Executive Officer of OncoGenex. "We anticipated pricing our initial public offering on February 27, coincidentally the same day that the equity markets suffered the largest one-day decline in four years. Given current market conditions, we believe it is in our shareholders' best interest to withdraw our initial public offering and continue to focus on delivering results from our phase 2 programs.

"We have the resources to complete our five ongoing phase 2 clinical trials with our lead product candidate, OGX-011, in prostate, breast and non-small cell lung cancers," added Cormack. "We expect to have primary endpoint data from all five of these trials by the end of this year, and we look forward to reporting data in the appropriate forums."

About OncoGenex

OncoGenex is committed to the development and commercialization of new cancer therapies that address treatment resistance in cancer patients. OncoGenex currently has three product candidates in development: OGX-011, OGX-427 and OGX-225. These product candidates are designed to selectively inhibit the production of proteins that are associated with treatment resistance and that are over-produced in response to a variety of cancer treatments. OncoGenex' aim in targeting these particular proteins is to disable the tumor cells' adaptive defenses, render the tumor cells susceptible to attack with a variety of cancer therapies including chemotherapy, and facilitate tumor cell death. More information on OncoGenex and the company's pipeline is available at www.oncogenex.ca.

Forward-looking Statements

This press release may include forward-looking statements. Statements regarding future events, expectations and beliefs of management and other statements that do not express historical facts, are forward-looking statements. Words such as "believe", "may", "will", "estimate", "continue", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "plan", "predict", "potential" and similar expressions, as they relate to OncoGenex, our business and our management, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends affecting the financial condition of our business. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by, which such performance or results will be achieved. Forward-looking statements are based on information available at the time those statements are made and/or management's good faith belief as of that time with respect to future events, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in or suggested by the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause such differences include, but are not limited to: delays or unfavorable results from our current and planned clinical trials; our ability to establish and maintain intellectual property protection for our product candidates; our access to additional capital; our ability to enter into and maintain relationships with third parties, such as licensors, manufacturers, suppliers and those who conduct clinical trials for us; our ability to enroll patients for our clinical trials; our ability to implement and manage our sales and commercialization initiatives; the impact of competition and technological change; the timing of necessary regulatory clearances; coverage and reimbursement policies of governmental and private third-party payors, including the U.S. Medicare and Medicaid programs; general economic and business conditions, both nationally and in our markets; our ability to attract and retain key management and scientific personnel; existing and future regulations that affect our business; and other factors included in OncoGenex's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the Canadian securities regulators.

In light of these risks and uncertainties, forward-looking events and circumstances included in this presentation may not occur and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date the statements are made. You should not put undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. We assume no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changes in assumptions or changes in other factors affecting forward-looking information, except to the extent required by applicable securities laws. If we do update one or more forward-looking statements, no inference should be drawn that we will make additional updates with respect to those or other forward-looking statements.

CONTACT: OncoGenex Contact: Scott Cormack, President & CEO, (604) 630-5400, scormack@oncogenex.ca; Media Contact: Jason Spark, Porter Novelli Life Sciences, (619) 849-6005, jspark@pnlifesciences.com

OncoGenex Technologies Inc.

CONTACT: OncoGenex Contact: Scott Cormack, President & CEO, (604)630-5400, scormack@oncogenex.ca; Media Contact: Jason Spark, Porter NovelliLife Sciences, (619) 849-6005, jspark@pnlifesciences.com

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