PeriCor Therapeutics Release: Acadesine Reduces Two-Year Mortality Following Heart Attacks In Heart Bypass Patients

NEW YORK, May 12 /PRNewswire/ -- PeriCor Therapeutics announced that a landmark study of its novel cardioprotective agent, acadesine, demonstrated the drug's ability to prolong long-term survival in those patients who suffer heart attacks following heart bypass surgery. Among patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery who suffered post-reperfusion myocardial infarction (MI), mortality after two years was reduced by 77% with acadesine treatment.

This study, entitled "Post-Reperfusion Myocardial Infarction: Long-Term Survival Improvement Using Adenosine Regulation with Acadesine," was published online by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) on May 9, 2006 following expedited review. The JACC article was authored by Dennis T. Mangano, Ph.D., M.D. and colleagues at the Ischemia Research and Education Foundation (IREF) and conducted in collaboration with the Multicenter Study of Perioperative Ischemia Research Group.

The study, originally presented at the American College of Cardiology's (ACC) 55th Scientific Session in March 2006, offered several important findings:

* MI conferred a significantly increased risk of mortality among CABG patients. In the overall study population, 18% of patients died within two years if they had suffered MI, compared to 4.3% of those without MI, a 4.2-fold increase in mortality (p<0.001). Among placebo patients, MI was associated with 27.8% mortality, compared to only 4.0% mortality in patients who had not had MI (p<0.0001). * The mortality risk associated with MI was largely negated by acadesine. The 27.8% mortality rate following MIs among placebo patients fell to 6.5% (p=0.006) with acadesine treatment. Impressively, the odds ratio for post-reperfusion mortality fell from 12.4 (p<0.001) in placebo patients to 0.8 (p=0.69) in patients treated with acadesine. * The reduction in mortality was evident in the first 30 days following surgery and was sustained throughout the two-year follow-up period. * The results were similar among diverse subsets of patients and multivariate analysis confirmed the findings.

The authors remarked that this "is the first trial of this size to demonstrate an important reduction in mortality associated with reperfusion- induced MI in any setting of clinical revascularization and the first to show a sustained benefit over the long term."

Adenosine-Mediated Cardioprotection

Adenosine regulation by acadesine provides highly site- and event-specific amplification of adenosine-mediated cardioprotection while exhibiting a remarkable safety profile in more than 2,000 patients who have received the drug in controlled clinical trials. Adenosine targets a broad-spectrum of the pathophysiology of ischemia/reperfusion injury that involves an even broader range of chemical mediators and cell types than was recognized only ten years ago. Adenosine has been shown in animal studies to be a powerful mediator of ischemic preconditioning, the most potent approach to reducing infarct size in ischemia/reperfusion injury.

In an accompanying Editorial Comment, entitled "Moving Preconditioning from Bench to Bedside," Robert A. Kloner, M.D., Ph.D., FACC (The Heart Institute, Good Samaritan Hospital) suggested that acadesine could become the first preconditioning mimetic therapy. Dr. Kloner noted, "it has been 20 years since the initial description of ischemic preconditioning ... [and yet] no clinical therapy has emerged from the phenomenon that is routinely used in clinical practice ... the study by Mangano et al. in this issue of the Journal might change this."

Recently published studies have documented an extended range of applications for a similar adenosine-mediated cardioprotective phenomenon referred to as ischemic post-conditioning. Richard R. Stover, President and Chief Executive Officer of PeriCor Therapeutics, commented that: "In light of these findings, PeriCor intends to study the life-saving potential of acadesine in an extended range of indications, including the treatment of heart attack patients in the setting of percutaneous coronary intervention."

About PeriCor Therapeutics

PeriCor Therapeutics, Inc. is a privately-held specialty biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of a new class of medicines, adenosine regulating agents, to prevent the perioperative complications of surgery and improve the treatment and outcomes of acute cardiovascular care.

PeriCor Therapeutics, Inc.

CONTACT: Richard R. Stover of PeriCor Therapeutics, Inc., +1-212-601-2725,or Roland Tomforde of Broadgate Consultants, +1-212-232-2222

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