Osta Announces Promising Human Prostate Tissue Biopsy Pathology Results

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Osta Biotechnologies Inc. (TSX VENTURE:OBI) today announced the results of a
prostate cancer tissue biopsy study on its target for prostate cancer. Data from
this study showed statistically significant elevation in the HO-1 levels in
tumor biopsy samples from patients with advanced hormone refractory prostate
cancer (HRPCA) compared to those with benign or localized prostate cancer (PCA).
These results identify HO-1 as a potential biomarker and therapeutic target for
advanced HRPCA and hold promise that Osta's novel HO-1 inhibitors, used alone or
in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents such as taxol, could become
the treatment of choice for treating advanced HRPCA in humans.


These findings represent an important milestone in Osta's plan to develop novel
chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of highly metastatic, aggressive and
drug resistant tumors and provide an important advancement towards generating
sufficient pre-clinical data in order for the company to advance towards IND
filing.


Results of the Clinical Study

The clinical study was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Moulay Alaoui-Jamali,
a Professor of Medicine at McGill University and the Group Leader of Drug
Discovery at the Segal Cancer Centre of the Jewish General Hospital. The study
cohort consisted of over 96 patients with benign, PCA and HRPCA. Tissue samples
were obtained from transuretheral resection of prostate tissue from patients,
and HO-1 expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry using a
high-throughput tissue microarray from PCA cases composed of benign prostate,
localized PCA and HRPCA. The normalized mean epithelial expression of HO-1 in
HRPCA was 1.88+/-0.99, which was significantly higher than localized PCA
(0.82+0.95; p less than 0.05) and benign prostate tissue (0.65+/-0.88) (p less
than 0.01). Unlike epithelial cancer cells, HO-1 expresion in stromal cells
surrounding the cancer tissue was not significantly different between benign
tissue, localized PCA and HRPCA.


Dr. Alaoui-Jamali commented "These results are exciting as they support our
earlier basic molecular studies in preclinical models where HO-1 was found to
play a rate-limiting step in the biology of prostate cancer progression and
could represent a novel therapeutic target for HRPCA. Indeed, we have noticed
that silencing of the HO-1 gene in HRPCA cancer cells decreased HO-1 activity,
oxidative stress, and activation of several kinases hyperactivated in cancer.
This coincided with reduced cell proliferation, cell survival, cell migration
and invasion in vitro, as well as inhibition of prostate tumor growth and lymph
node and lung metastases induced by human prostate cancer transplanted into
mouse prostate. The impact of HO-1 silencing on these oncogenic features was
mimicked by exposure of cells to one of the Osta lead HO-1 inhibitors, OB-24."


Dr. Ajay Gupta, Chairman & CEO of Osta commented "We are quite excited with
these results and are continuing to further scale up our pre-clinical study in
this aggressive and metastatic prostate cancer model. The successful development
of OB-24 either alone or in combination with drugs such as taxol for the
treatment of drug resistant and metastatic prostate cancer would represent a
major breakthrough in the treatment of this devastating disease."


Osta Biotechnologies Inc.

Osta is a biopharmaceutical company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX
VENTURE:OBI) dedicated to developing novel diagnostics and therapeutics for the
aging population particularly in the areas of Cancer, Alzheimer's disease,
Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and XLH.


Certain information in this press release is forward-looking and is subject to
numerous risks and uncertainties. By their nature, such forward-looking
statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to
differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements.
These risks include actions of Osta's competitors, and those inherent in
scientific research and development. The issue of this press release is limited
to Canada only.