CytoDyn to Develop AIDS Drug after Amerimmune Bankruptcy

CytoDyn to Develop AIDS Drug after Amerimmune Bankruptcy

Business Wire - April 21, 2003

LOS ANGELES--Amerimmune Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has suspended operations and petitioned for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after being served with two lawsuits. Following months of unsuccessful negotiations, one of the lawsuits was initiated by Los Angeles-based CytoDyn of New Mexico, Inc., the privately-held company from which Amerimmune had licensed its only product Cytolin(R), a promising antibody for treating HIV/AIDS. Rather than treating the HIV infection directly, Cytolin(R), which must be injected in a doctor's office, is designed to make the human immune system more like the immune systems of primates that can carry the AIDS virus without becoming ill. During the height of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S., hundreds of patients were treated with off-label Cytolin(R) with encouraging results.

The other lawsuit, alleging nonpayment for services rendered, was filed by Symbion Research International, the Contract Research Organization that supervised Amerimmune's clinical trial of Cytolin(R). The clinical trial, while preliminary, replicated previous studies that had provided early evidence for the safety and efficacy of Cytolin(R), according to an abstract presented by Donald W. Northfelt, M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, at the 9th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections held in Seattle, Feb. 24-28, 2002.

Despite the significant economic loss to CytoDyn and some of its officers, CytoDyn welcomes Amerimmune's bankruptcy because there is no longer a need to prove CytoDyn's allegation that Amerimmune had, for unknown reasons, abandoned its patent and manufacturing rights but refused to acknowledge it. This left Cytolin(R) and the underlying platform technology in a state of limbo. However, CytoDyn will continue to seek indemnification from Amerimmune's officers and directors for abandonment of an FDA-approved manufacturing technology that was developed by Vista Biologicals Corporation of Carlsbad, Calif., and that CytoDyn must now replace.

Freed from the problems surrounding Amerimmune, CytoDyn intends to waste no time in getting Cytolin(R) back on development track so it will be available to the patients worldwide who may need it. Toward that end, scientist and CytoDyn cofounder Allen D. Allen has won approval for a European patent that Amerimmune had decided not to pursue. This complements a portfolio of three U.S. patents issued to Allen and licensed to CytoDyn.

CONTACT: CytoDyn

Allen D. Allen, 818/501-8737

SOURCE: CytoDyn of New Mexico, Inc.

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