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VIA Pharmaceuticals Announces Funding for Pharmacogenomic Sub-Study on VIA-2291 ACS Trial

Posted on: Wednesday, 3 October 2007, 21:00 CDT

VIA Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VIAP) a biotechnology company focused on the development of compounds for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, today announced funding of a research initiative for a pharmacogenomics sub-study in its VIA-2291 Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) trial. This study will be funded by Genome Quebec, a non-profit organization focused on genomics and proteomics research.

VIA joined the Montreal Heart Institute in the "Competition Privac" organized by Genome Quebec to promote academic and private industry collaboration in genomics and proteomics. Funding of the program will be approximately $5.0 million at current U.S. and Canadian exchange rates, with VIA providing approximately $2.4 million of this funding for expenditures planned in its ACS clinical trial, and approximately $200,000 for costs related to the pharmacogenomics sub-study. Genome Quebec and other companies will be providing the balance of the co-funding.

The primary focus of the project will be to develop a 5 Lipoxygenase (5-LO) genotyping panel for VIA-2291 as well as a next-generation all-inclusive ADME/Tox panel. Additionally, the project includes development of genotyping panels broadly applicable to future clinical trials, thus creating informatics tools for genotyping operations in support of VIA's pharmacogenomic sub-study, and providing the ability to integrate these tools in VIA's current, and future, clinical trials.

"We believe that this sub-study will generate important information on the pharmacogenomics of our study patients, and will provide additional insight into the role we believe VIA-2291 will play in reducing vascular inflammation in ACS patients with atherosclerosis", stated Lawrence K. Cohen, VIA's CEO and president. Dr. Cohen further stated "we believe that this collaboration with Montreal Heart Institute, including Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, its Director of Research and the principal investigator for our ACS Phase II trial, and genomics thought leaders at Genome Quebec, will provide state-of-the-art tools that will have broad benefits for VIA in current and future clinical trials."

About VIA Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

VIA Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biotechnology company focused on the development of compounds for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. VIA is building a pipeline of small-molecule drugs that target inflammation in the blood vessel wall, an underlying cause of atherosclerosis and its complications, including heart attack and stroke. VIA's lead drug candidate, VIA-2291, is in two concurrent Phase II clinical studies in patients with cardiovascular disease. VIA is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information, visit: www.viapharmaceuticals.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements relate to future events or to VIA's future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause VIA's actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the use of words such as "may,""could,""expect,""intend,""plan,""seek,""anticipate,""believe,""estimate,""predict,""potential,""continue" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond VIA's control and which could materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements.

Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to:

our ability to obtain necessary financing;

our ability to comply with the registration requirements set forth in the securities purchase agreement with respect to the private placement and to timely file and have declared effective a resale registration statement registering the common stock sold pursuant to the securities purchase agreement to avoid payment of liquidated damages;

our ability to control our operating expenses;

our ability to recruit and enroll patients for the CEA and ACS clinical trials;

our ability to successfully complete our clinical trials of VIA-2291 on expected timetables and the outcomes of such clinical trials;

the outcome of any legal proceedings;

our ability to obtain necessary FDA approvals, our ability to successfully commercialize VIA-2291;

our ability to obtain and protect our intellectual property related to our product candidates;

our potential for future growth and the development of our product pipeline;

our ability to form and maintain collaborative relationships to develop and commercialize our product candidates;

general economic and business conditions; and

the other risks described under the heading "Risk Factors" in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2007 on file with the SEC.

All forward-looking statements attributable to us or persons acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements set forth above. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and VIA undertakes no obligation to update publicly any of these statements in light of new information or future events.

Source: Business Wire

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