Immtech signs agreement with CombinatoRx to test Immtech compounds as potential cancer treatment

Immtech International, Inc. announced today that it signed an agreement with CombinatoRx of Boston, Massachusetts to screen its lead aromatic cationic compounds, DB289 and DB75, for activity against various cancers.

Immtech is currently studying the effectiveness of DB289 in Phase IIa/IIb human clinical trials to treat malaria and African sleeping sickness.

Immtech believes that its proprietary compounds' broad-based activities and unique mechanism of action will demonstrate, through CombinatoRx's studies, activity in oncology.

The studies will include in vitro assays and in vivo models to test Immtech's compounds alone and in combination with CombinatoRx's proprietary anti-cancer technology.

Immtech International, Inc. is a pharmaceutical company focused on the commercialization of oral treatments for infectious diseases such as pneumonia, fungal infections, malaria, tuberculosis and diabetes, and tropical diseases such as African sleeping sickness and Leishmaniasis.

The Company has worldwide, exclusive rights to commercialize a dicationic pharmaceutical platform from which a pipeline of products may be developed targeting large, global markets.

CombinatoRx, a privately held pharmaceutical company, is creating new combination medicines that attack disease on multiple fronts.

The company has an impressive clinical and preclinical pipeline of novel agents, including treatments in development for cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, and has ongoing research in respiratory, metabolic, and infectious diseases.

CombinatoRx invented the industry's first combination drug discovery platform to generate new medicines, based upon new insights into disease networks, in a broad range of therapeutic areas. Founded in 2000 by leading scientists from Harvard and MIT, the company has raised $90M in venture capital and is executing on its business strategy to rapidly build and commercialize a portfolio of breakthrough products.