ROCKVILLE, Md., June 3, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Nabi Biopharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:NABI) has received a $2.5 million payment from Fresenius USA Manufacturing, Inc. (Fresenius) for the successful completion of another milestone under the agreement governing the Company's 2006 sale of PhosLo(r) (calcium acetate) and the product's related assets to Fresenius for a total consideration of up to $150 million. This milestone payment was contingent on publication of information related to the CARE-2 (Calcium Acetate Renagel Evaluation-2) Study. The twelve month study, published in the June 2008 edition of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, demonstrated that when lipid levels are kept constant in both treatment groups, there is no difference in cardiovascular calcification between patients treated with PhosLo and those treated with Renagel (sevelamer hydrochloride).
"I am very pleased that we have achieved yet another milestone toward realizing the significant remaining value of our PhosLo revenue stream," said Dr. Raafat Fahim, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nabi Biopharmaceuticals. "In less than two years, we have successfully completed four of the six milestones under the sale agreement. We look forward to fully realizing the remaining $72 million potential PhosLo revenue stream."
Nabi received $65 million when the PhosLo sale transaction closed in November 2006 and has collected an additional $13 million in milestone payments since then. The Company has the opportunity to receive an additional $7.5 million in remaining milestone payments along with $65 million in potential royalty payments based on sales over a base amount of a new formulation of the PhosLo product under development by Fresenius.
About Nabi Biopharmaceuticals
Nabi Biopharmaceuticals leverages its experience and knowledge in powering the immune system to develop products that target serious medical conditions in the areas of nicotine addiction and gram-positive bacterial infections. Nabi Biopharmaceuticals is currently developing NicVAX(r) (Nicotine Conjugate Vaccine), an innovative and proprietary investigational vaccine for treatment of nicotine addiction and prevention of smoking relapse, and PentaStaph(tm) (Pentavalent S. aureus Vaccine), a vaccine designed to prevent the most dangerous and prevalent strains of S. aureus bacterial infections. The company is headquartered in Rockville, Maryland. For additional information about Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, please visit our Web site:http://www.nabi.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this release that are not strictly historical are forward-looking statements including statements about future PhosLo milestone and royalty payments. You can identify these forward-looking statements because they involve our expectations, beliefs, projections, anticipations or other characterizations of future events or circumstances. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of any number of factors. These factors include, but are not limited to, risks relating to our ability to: successfully pursue strategic and other alternatives; obtain successful clinical trial results; receive PhosLo milestone and royalty proceeds; successfully partner with third parties to fund, develop, and manufacture our pipeline products, including NicVAX and our gram-positive infections products; realize anticipated cost saving; attract and maintain the human and financial resources to bring to market products in development; depend upon third parties to manufacture our products; achieve approval and market acceptance of our products; enter into and maintain arrangements with third parties to market and sell our products; comply with reporting and payment obligations under government rebate and pricing programs; raise additional capital on acceptable terms, or at all; and re-pay our outstanding convertible senior notes when due. Many of these factors are more fully discussed, as are other factors, in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 29, 2007 and our Quarterly Report for the quarter ended March 29, 2008 on form 10-Q that have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.