Osta Announces Promising Pre-Clinical Results on Metastatic Melanoma

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Osta Biotechnologies Inc. (TSX VENTURE:OBI) today announced the results of a
pre-clinical efficacy study on a novel anti-cancer therapeutic agent OB-28 in a
highly tumorigenic and metastatic human melanoma xenograft mouse model. Data
from this pre-clinical study showed statistically significant reduction in the
tumor volumes in mice treated with OB-28 compared to mice treated with vehicle
alone and the activity of OB-28 was found to be significantly greater than that
of Dacarbazine, a chemotherapy drug widely used for the treatment of this type
of cancer. OB-28 was found to be well tolerated in mice at various dose levels
with multiple administrations. These results hold promise that OB-28 could
become a treatment of choice for metastatic and chemotherapy-resistant melanoma
in humans.


Results of the Pre-Clinical Study

The pre-clinical study was conducted in collaboration with Dr. M. Alaoui-Jamali,
a Professor of Oncology & Senior Scientist at McGill University and the Segal
Cancer Centre of the Jewish General Hospital. In a pre-clinical study involving
a total of 42 Scid mice implanted with human metastatic melanoma SKMEL-V cells,
the tumor volumes were found to be significantly smaller in mice treated with
OB-28 via an i.v. infusion over a period of 1.5 hours at 30 mg/kg (2 cycles, d1,
3, 5 per cycle, 30% reduction); at 60 mg/kg (2 cycles, d1, 3, 5 per cycle, 52%
reduction, p less than 0.05); at 200 mg/kg (2 cycles, d1, 5 per cycle; 69%
reduction, p less than 0.01) and at 1000 mg/kg (2 cycles, d1, 5 per cycle, 78%
reduction, p less than 0.01) dose levels compared with those in animals treated
with vehicle alone or with i.v. injection of Dacarbazine at 10 mg/kg (2 cycles,
d1, 3, 5 per cycle, 21% reduction). These results demonstrate that OB-28 is a
very potent anti-cancer agent against metastatic melanoma.


Dr. Ajay Gupta, Chairman & CEO of Osta commented "We are quite excited with
these results and are continuing to advance the pre-clinical development of our
novel anti-cancer compounds in aggressive and metastatic cancer models. The
successful development of OB-28 for the treatment of drug resistant and
metastatic melanoma would represent a major breakthrough in the treatment of
this devastating disease."


About Osta Biotechnologies Inc.

Osta is a biopharmaceutical company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange currently
focusing on developing therapeutics for Cancer and Alzheimer's disease.