BattellePharma to Present At Respiratory Drug Delivery VIII Conference.

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

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COLUMBUS, Ohio--(BW HealthWire)--May 7, 2002

BattellePharma, Inc., formerly Battelle Pulmonary Therapeutics, Inc., announced today that the company will be presenting one paper and three posters at the Respiratory Drug Delivery VIII Conference (RDD) on May 12-16, 2002, at The Westin La Paloma Hotel in Tucson, Arizona. BattellePharma is also one of the corporate sponsors of the annual international conference for biological and pharmaceutical issues relating to optimized aerosol drug delivery. All of BattellePharma's papers will be published in the Proceedings of Respiratory Drug Delivery VIII.

Michael E. Placke, Ph.D., vice president and chief scientist at BattellePharma will present "Targeted Aerosol Therapy for the Treatment of Lung Cancer," at 10:00 a.m. Monday, May 13, 2002. Placke's presentation will address the benefits of delivering cyto-reductive and tumor-inhibitory therapies directly to the respiratory tract for the treatment of respiratory tract cancers, while minimizing toxicity to the surrounding healthy tissue. Preliminary results from an ongoing multi-dose, multi-centered, dose-escalation study of an inhaled doxorubicin will be revealed.

"BattellePharma has developed a novel therapeutic approach to treat respiratory tract cancers through its pulmonary devices, formulations, and treatment methods that deliver therapies directly to the respiratory tract," Placke said. "The company will present its pre-clinical efficacy and safety data on a variety of chemotherapeutic compounds delivered as inhaled aerosols."

The poster presentations for RDD will be on display Monday, May 13, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and Tuesday, May 14, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The first poster, "Development of Multiple Clinical and Commercial Applications Using Mystic(TM) Inhalation Delivery Technologies," will be presented by William C. Zimlich, Jr., vice president, device product development. Zimlich will address developments in the engineering and clinical testing of Mystic, BattellePharma's proprietary electrohydrodynamic (EHD) aerosol technology for widespread clinical commercial use. Mystic inhalation technology utilizes EHD based aerosol generation technology and has been developed for wide drug product and clinical application, cost-effective manufacturability, adherence to regulatory performance criteria, and both patient and clinician acceptability.

"BattellePharma's Mystic EHD technology addresses the limitations other inhalers experience, including inconsistent dosing and poor delivery efficiencies. Also, existing devices often require patients to produce specific and difficult breathing patterns, which limit device effectiveness," Zimlich said. "Early pilot production of Mystic devices have met or exceeded FDA guidelines, while providing maximum safety and efficacy for the patient."

Jeffrey Y. Ding, director, medical aerosols at BattellePharma, will present two posters; the first titled "Delivery of Chemotherapy Agent for Cancer Treatment via Nebulization." Currently surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy are primary treatments for lung cancer, which is the leading killer among cancers. Of the almost 170,000 people diagnosed with lung cancer annually in the United States, approximately 86 percent die within five years. Ding's presentation will describe a new delivery system designed and developed to address the performance issues associated with conventional inhalers and report the aerosol characteristics produced from this delivery system using a novel formulation containing doxorubicin, under development by BattellePharma for the treatment of various lung cancers.

The last poster, also presented by Ding is, "Correlation of Particle Size Distribution Measurements between Optical and Inertial Impaction Techniques using an Ethanolic Drug Formulation for Inhalation." Particle size is considered the most important and most readily controllable factor determining deposition in the respiratory tract. Ding will address how the particle size distribution of an aerosolized therapy formulated as a solution in an ethanol base vehicle was measured using the most common methods, laser diffraction and inertial impaction techniques.

About BattellePharma

BattellePharma is a pre-public specialty pharmaceutical company leveraging science and engineering to design more effective medicines. The company has a growing portfolio of nine products in development, with several in early clinical trials. The products are based on three proprietary platforms: Mystic(TM) inhalation technology, novel formulation technologies, and inhaled anticancer therapy. The company develops products by combining these platforms with novel or generic compounds to create therapies to treat respiratory and systemic diseases and lung cancer. BattellePharma has partnerships with numerous pharmaceutical corporations, including Abbott Laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer Inc, Viasys Healthcare, and ViroPharma Inc, and is a subsidiary of Battelle Memorial Institute, the world's largest independent and private research and development organization. For more information on BattellePharma, reference the company's website at www.battellepharma.com.