PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 13, 2006--Cook to Fund All Clinical Development of Three Products for Cardiovascular Restenosis and Develop Products for Peripheral Vascular Diseases. AVI BioPharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVII), today announced that it has entered into agreements with Cook Group Inc. (Cook) for Cook’s development and commercialization of products for vascular diseases. Cook has specifically licensed AVI’s NEUGENE(R) antisense technology for down-regulating c-myc gene expression in the field of cardiovascular disease. Cook will take over clinical development of AVI’s device-related programs for cardiovascular restenosis, including its Resten-NG(R) drug-eluting stent (DES) program, Resten-MP(TM) microparticle delivery program and its new program for catheter delivery of Resten-NG.
