Avid Radiopharmaceuticals Selected to Receive Seed Funding from BioAdvance; Funds to Be Used to Develop Molecular Imaging Tools for Alzheimer's Disease.

PHILADELPHIA -- Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, Inc, a product-focused molecular imaging company, today announced its first fundraising of $500,000 from BioAdvance, the Biotechnology Greenhouse of Southeastern Pennsylvania. The funds will be used to develop Avid's molecular imaging products for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease.

"Selection for this financing, together with recent positive preclinical and clinical data obtained with our Alzheimer's disease products, are key milestones that solidly position Avid to bring our first commercial product into Phase I trials," said Daniel Skovronsky, M.D., Ph.D., President and C.E.O. of Avid. "We are optimistic that our products will allow for early and accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, and will fundamentally change the way the medical community evaluates and treats elderly patients with memory complaints."

Avid intends to use the BioAdvance funding to support preclinical studies of AV-1, a radiopharmaceutical that binds to the amyloid plaques that are universally present in Alzheimer's disease. Together with positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, AV-1 will be used to identify patients with or at risk for developing Alzheimer's disease.

More than 4.5 million Americans now have Alzheimer's disease, and this number is predicted to triple over the next 50 years. With more than 60 drugs currently in clinical trials, there is a growing optimism in the scientific community that the next five years will bring significant advances in treatment for this devastating disease. Many of the drugs in clinical trials today target amyloid plaque buildup, but development efforts have been hampered by the lack of effective ways to visualize brain amyloid plaques.

"A noninvasive, clinically proven imaging test to detect brain amyloid would dramatically change clinical care and drug development research for Alzheimer's disease," stated Howard Fillit, M.D., Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Aging, a philanthropy dedicated to drug discovery for Alzheimer's disease. "Brain amyloid neuroimaging would significantly improve the accuracy of diagnosis and enable early diagnosis -- the key to quality care and effective prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Avid's amyloid neuroimaging technology would also significantly reduce the costs and time for development of new drugs for Alzheimer's disease."

About Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, Inc.

Founded in 2004, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals is a product-focused molecular imaging company that is a pioneer in developing radiopharmaceuticals for imaging Alzheimer's disease pathology. Two of Avid's radiopharmaceuticals are already in clinical trials, and Avid intends to make these products available to pharmaceutical companies that are seeking to develop new drugs for treatment of Alzheimer's disease. By providing a readily measured biomarker for this disease, Avid's products can facilitate testing of therapies aimed at amyloid plaques. Avid's first two commercial products for the Alzheimer's disease diagnostic market are currently in preclinical development.

About BioAdvance

BioAdvance was established in 2002 with $33.8 million from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's share of tobacco settlement monies to accelerate the creation of life sciences businesses and jobs in southeastern Pennsylvania. BioAdvance is accomplishing this goal through its key funding program, the $20-million Greenhouse Fund, linking entrepreneurs to the region's wealth of resources and with public-private initiatives like the new BioAdvance Ventures, L.P. fund.