Arizona Biotech Funding News
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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. AmpliMed, Amplimexon and Amplizone are United States trademarks of AmpliMed Corporation.

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