Pulmokine receives NIH SBIR grants to develop novel treatments for PAH

- Lead molecules derived from YM BioSciences' compound library -

YM BioSciences Inc. (NYSE Amex: YMI, TSX:YM), today reported that Pulmokine Inc. (Slingerlands, New York), a licensee of several small molecule compounds from YM, has been awarded two National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants. The grants, totaling more than US$650,000, are Phase I awards to develop novel treatments for Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH). These compounds, originating from YM BioSciences' small molecule library, have defined mechanisms of action and, based on preliminary experiments, are believed to inhibit key processes in PAH disease development and progression. YM will continue to have a role in the ongoing development of the compounds.

"PAH is associated with a high morbidity and mortality and the therapies now available have little effect on disease progression," said Dr. Lawrence Zisman, CEO and CSO of Pulmokine. "The opportunities for the compounds licensed from YM are significant if they continue to demonstrate the potential to offer new options for patients with this debilitating disease." Dr. Zisman will be presenting preliminary data from these studies at the forthcoming American Heart Association meeting on Monday, November 15, 2010.

"YM BioSciences has built a library of approximately 4,000 novel small molecules, largely targeting protein tyrosine kinases. This library has already provided our clinical stage products CYT387 and CYT997, and we have identified a variety of additional compounds with significant development potential," said Dr. Nick Glover, President and COO of YM BioSciences. "The collaboration with Pulmokine enables us to continue to leverage this library through risk-sharing collaborations. We have already entered into a similar relationship with Australian-based Cancer Therapeutics Ltd. to develop novel cancer drugs targeting the FAK enzyme. We will continue to explore further collaborations of a similar nature for other molecules from our library, with a view to potentially augmenting our clinical development pipeline in the future with internally-discovered compounds."

Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) is characterized by constriction of the pulmonary arterioles, the small blood vessels that carry absorbed oxygen from the lungs into the circulation. The average survival after diagnosis of PAH is three years for untreated patients. The worldwide incidence of primary PAH is estimated to be 5-6 cases per million of population, while PAH secondary to other diseases has a higher incidence. For example, the incidence of PAH associated with systemic sclerosis is estimated to be 11-47 cases per million.

The SBIR Program is a US-federally funded grant program administered by the US NIH. The aims of the program are to support small business in the development of new technologies, specifically the generation of proof-of-concept data in relevant models.