Nile Therapeutics closes underwritten public offering of common stock

Nile Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: NLTX), a company focused on the development of novel therapeutics for heart failure patients, announced the closing of its previously announced underwritten public offering of 6,500,000 units of its securities consisting of an aggregate of 6,500,000 shares of common stock and warrants to purchase an aggregate of 1,950,000 shares of common stock. Each unit consisted of one share of Nile common stock and 0.30 warrants to purchase common stock.  Each warrant has a term of five years and represents the right to purchase one share of common stock at an exercise price of $0.94 per share.  The units immediately separated and the common stock and warrants were issued separately.  The warrants began trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market on April 22, 2010 under the symbol "NLTXW".  Each unit was sold at a public offering price of $0.70.

Maxim Group LLC acted as the sole book-running manager for this offering, with Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Ltd. as co-manager.  Nile has granted the underwriters an option for a period of 45 days to purchase up to an additional 975,000 units to cover over-allotments, if any.

The net proceeds from the sale of the units, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other estimated offering expenses, were approximately $4.0 million.   The Company plans to use the net proceeds from this offering to fund the previously announced expansion of its ongoing Phase II clinical trial of CD-NP in acute heart failure patients, and for general corporate purposes and working capital.

The offering described above was made pursuant to a shelf registration statement previously filed with and declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 12, 2010. A final prospectus supplement relating to the offering was filed with the SEC on April 22, 2010, and is available on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov.