HUDDINGE, Sweden, April 26, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- Medivir:
- MIV-606 against shingles: US market rights outlicensed to Reliant Pharmaceuticals, raising a SEK 50 m up-front payment. Medivir entered another strategic alliance with Reliant regarding rights to the European and Asian markets. - MV026048 against HIV: Medivir entered an outlicensing agreement with Roche after the end of the accounting period, generating an SEK 50 m up-front payment in Q2. SEK 20 m will be raised as a directed share issue provided by the extra shareholder meeting's approval. - MIV-150 against HIV: After the end of the accounting period Chiron announced that they will return the project to Medivir. - Magnus Falk was elected to Medivir's Board. - The Board revoked its motion regarding a staff stock option program coincident with the AGM. - Profit after financial items increased to SEK 2.8 (-34.7) m; net sales were SEK 86.6 (30.2) m. - CCS' net sales grew to SEK 35.0 (30.7) m; operating earnings were SEK 3.1 (4.7) m.
Forthcoming Reports in 2002
The Second-quarter Interim Report will be published on 8 July The Third-quarter Interim Report will be published on 31 October The Financial Statement will be published on 14 February 2003
Medivir's financial reports are available from its Website, www.medivir.se as of these dates, under the 'Financial Information' heading.
For more information, please contact: Jonas Frick, CEO and President, tel: +46 (0)8 608 3117 Rein Piir, CFO and VP, IR, tel: +46 (0)8 608 3123
The Medivir Group
Medivir is an innovative specialist pharmaceuticals research and development company. Medivir's research is focused on developing substances into new pharmaceuticals based on proteases and polymerases as target enzymes. Research and development is pursued at Cambridge, U.K. and Huddinge, Sweden. The group comprises Medivir AB, the subsidiaries Medivir U.K. Ltd. and CCS AB, plus second-tier subsidiaries CCS (U.K.) Ltd. and Nordic Care Sweden AB. Medivir has been quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange O-list since 1996.
Medivir's research portfolio comprises projects against HIV, jaundice, shingles, cold sores, osteoporosis, asthma, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Medivir has four projects in clinical development phases, two of which are entering phase III after completing phase II. One project is in phase II and one is in phase I. Medivir's preclinical research encompasses a number of projects, one of which is in its late preclinical phase, one in its optimization phase and one in the model substance identification phase.
Medivir's explorative preclinical operations harbor some ten projects.
Introduction
After the end of the accounting period, Medivir entered an outlicensing agreement with Roche regarding Medivir's CD (candidate drug) MV026048 HIV-NNRTI.
Its Cathepsin projects, which enjoy substantial commercial potential, have progressed well-the preclinical research has advanced rapidly. Medivir has made some ground-breaking discoveries, raising the significance of these projects, which are an element of Medivir's efforts to establish an efficient, high-quality, commercially driven preclinical research organization, capable of regularly producing new candidate drugs (CD) based on polymerases and proteases as targets.
Medivir's development initiatives are oriented on completing clinical trials on MIV-310 in phase IIa and MIV-210's preclinical efficacy and toxicological studies, in clinical phase I.
Medivir's business development unit was reinforced in 2001. Efforts are focused on identifying partnerships for the following clinical projects: ME-609, MIV-310 and MIV-210, and to evaluate other business opportunities and research collaborations.
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The following files are available for download:
www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2002/04/26/20020426BIT00630/wkr0001.doc The full report www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2002/04/26/20020426BIT00630/wkr0002.pdf The full report