Patients Fighting Pulmonary Fibrosis Criticizes InterMune Strategy.

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

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SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 5, 2003

InterMune, Inc. of Brisbane, California, (NASDAQ:ITMN) a pharmaceutical company, is leaving critically ill patients without adequate treatment. Joseph L. Stendig, founder of Patients Fighting Pulmonary Fibrosis (PFPF), a non-profit corporation, has been seeking pirfenidone (PFD), a treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a fatal disease, from InterMune for some months, to no avail.

Stendig, an IPF sufferer, says: "It was very gratifying to see InterMune's press release yesterday, with a commitment to start large-scale clinical trials of PFD "later in the year." But the announcement still leaves open the following questions:

(1) "Why couldn't ongoing PFD studies continue while InterMune takes up to 10 months developing a new trial?;

(2) "Why were patients who were enrolled in the Phase II studies deprived of PFD when the study was terminated? InterMune could have elected to keep supplying them with PFD but refused to do so;

(3) "Why does InterMune refuse to allow patients to have PFD even though the patients are good candidates for Single Patient IND treatment?;

(4) "Why does InterMune persist in raising safety concerns in connection with PFD for terminally ill patients when it knows that there have been minimal, and mild adverse effects from PFD; moreover, InterMune must know that the safety standards for patients who will die without a helping drug are less stringent than those for full marketing approval;

(5) Why doesn't InterMune make use of the Treatment IND procedure to get PFD into the hands of desperately ill patients who may not survive until its new clinical studies are finally open to enrollment? InterMune could do so easily and with the FDA's blessing and save many lives. Is it because such a course of conduct would be the hallmark of a company driven by ethics and compassion rather than, as InterMune describes itself, as 'a commercially driven biopharmaceutical company....'?"

Faced by InterMune's refusal to supply PFD, Stendig filed a lawsuit against the company in San Francisco Superior Court on January 23, 2003. It alleges InterMune has a monopoly position in the market for drugs for treating IPF, and has abused this monopoly power. It seeks punitive damages - which Stendig has pledged to supply to PFPF -- and an injunction requiring the company to release PFD. "Nothing has changed, from my point of view. The suit will continue," Stendig insists.

See the website at http://www.fightingpulmonaryfibrosis.org for complete chronology of Stendig's struggle, multiple exhibits and the complaint.