Alchemia and Dr Reddy’s Expand Fondaparinux Marketing Collaboration

Alchemia (ASX:ACL) today announced the agreement of terms with Dr Reddy’s Limited for marketing fondaparinux sodium for injection (the generic version of GlaxoSmithKline’s Arixtra®) in all territories outside of North America. This agreement does not in any way alter the existing arrangements between the companies for the manufacture and North American marketing of fondaparinux.

Dr Reddy’s will pay to Alchemia a royalty on sales at an agreed proportion. Dr Reddy’s will have the option to market the drug itself or enter into agreements with third parties.

“This agreement makes a great deal of sense for Alchemia,” said Pete Smith, CEO of Alchemia. “Dr Reddy’s has the experience of directly marketing generic drugs in a large number of countries and supplying API to numerous other pharmaceutical and generic companies across the globe. Whilst Alchemia has been approached by a number of companies interested in marketing fondaparinux, it would be inefficient for us to identify and enter into multiple agreements in the markets where we have no experience.”

Fondparinux is used for the treatment and prevention of deep vein thrombosis (DVTs) and is sold under the brand name Arixtra by GlaxoSmithKline. In 2009, Global sales of Arixtra were around US$400M, growing 25% over the prior year, with US$180M of sales outside of the US. An ANDA was filed in the US by Dr Reddy’s in March 2009 with approval expected in the near term. In the EU, Arixtra is protected by data exclusivity which will expire in 2012.

About Alchemia Limited – www.alchemia.com.au

Alchemia is a drug discovery and development Company founded on its chemistry expertise. The Company’s lead program is fondaparinux (a generic version of GlaxoSmithKline’s Arixtra®, a synthetic anticoagulant mainly used for the prevention of deep vein thrombosis). The ANDA for generic fondaparinux was filed for approval with the US FDA in March 2009. It is partnered with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Inc. for the U.S. market. Alchemia’s pipeline of assets is built on two platform technologies: HyACT® (targeted cancer delivery) and VAST® (drug discovery). The primary objective of the HyACT® technology is to develop a new generation of anti-cancer drugs which demonstrate better efficacy. The lead product from the HyACT® platform is HA-Irinotecan for which a phase III clinical trial in metastatic colorectal cancer will commence in 2010. In addition to HA-Irinotecan, Alchemia has successfully taken two other anti-cancer products HA-Doxorubicin (doxorubicin and hyaluronic acid) and HA-Fluorouracil (5-fluorouracil and hyaluronic acid) into successful Phase I clinical testing and they continue to development on five other HyACT® drugs.