Somanta Completes Merger and Raises $5.9 Million in Private Placement Financing.

IRVINE, Calif. -- Privately held Somanta Incorporated today announced the completion of a reverse merger transaction with Hibshman Optical Corp., a public company with no prior operating or stock trading history. Somanta, a specialty oncology company with a focus on in-licensing and clinically developing anti-cancer agents, will remain as the surviving corporation with its management and Board of Directors assuming operational control of the combined companies. The merger will result in Somanta becoming a publicly traded company, renamed as Somanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc., trading on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board.

Somanta also announced that it has raised approximately $5.9 million in gross proceeds through the sale of Series A convertible preferred stock to a group of institutional investors. SCO Securities LLC acted as exclusive placement agent for the transaction. The proceeds of this offering will be utilized for the clinical development of its three lead pre-clinical candidates. Following the reverse merger and sale of preferred stock, Somanta now has approximately 14.3 million shares outstanding, including approximately 570,000 shares held by former Hibshman Optical shareholders.

Agamemnon Epenetos, MD, PhD, chief executive officer of Somanta, commented, "This merger transaction allows Somanta to access the public capital markets and will accelerate our company strategy of acquiring and developing innovative anti-cancer compounds. We look forward to growing the company as we seek additional product acquisitions, and continue the development of our existing pipeline of five oncology product candidates."

Somanta's lead drug candidate is Alchemix, a chloroethylaminoanthraquinone, a multi-target inhibitor that overcomes chemotherapeutic drug resistance by binding to DNA in tumor cells. The Company believes Alchemix has the ability to overcome many different pathways of drug resistance, and will be studied in a broad range of cancers including lung, colon, ovarian and renal cancers. Preclinical animal studies have been completed, and a Phase IIa dose escalation trial is expected to commence during Q4 of 2006.

Somanta's platform technology, Prodrax, is a novel family of prodrugs that enables compounds to remain inert until they reach the hypoxic region of tumors where they become toxic, effectively enabling the killing of tumors from the inside out.

Additionally, the Company is developing a humanized monoclonal antibody, Angiolix, which appears to induce cell death selectively to tumor blood vessels. Both Prodrax and Angiolix are in the preclinical phase.

Somanta's two clinical drug candidates, Phoenix, a unique humanized monoclonal antibody delivering selective radiation to tumors, and Sodium Phenylbutyrate, an HDAC inhibitor, are in investigator-sponsored Phase I/II clinical trials. Both have shown initial signs of clinical benefit in patients with cancer and have well known safety profiles. Phoenix, Somanta's most advanced product, is a radio-labeled humanized monoclonal antibody with high affinity for targeting MUC-1. A combination Phase I/II trial (Phoenix and Xeloda(TM)) has been initiated by academic investigators at New York University Medical Center/Bellevue Hospital, and the Company hopes to use favorable data from this trial to proceed to registration-directed trials under its own IND. Somanta intends to enter into a co-development agreement with another pharmaceutical company prior to initiating the further clinical development of Phoenix. Sodium Phenylbutyrate (PB) is a safe, well-tolerated compound that has been used in a small pediatric indication, hyperuremia, for many years. Recent NIH sponsored trials in a variety of cancers have generated significant human data into the treatment of various cancers. PB is a known inhibitor of histone deacetylase (HDAC), which regulates cell growth and death. Early indications of efficacy are for CNS cancer, myelodysplastic syndrome, acute myelogenous leukemia, acute promyelocytic leukaemia, and colon cancer. Sodium Phenylbutyrate is being developed jointly with Virium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., who has the North American rights. Somanta intends to await the results of Virium's Phase IIa trial before initiating a Company sponsored trial in Europe.

About Somanta Pharmaceuticals

Somanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ("Somanta") is a specialty oncology company with particular focus on in-licensing anti-cancer agents with substantial clinical data supporting safety and efficacy. To date, the Company has successfully in-licensed the rights to five products, each with a different mode of action and targeting eleven different cancer types.

Certain statements contained herein are "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Because these statements include risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Specifically, factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: risks associated with preclinical and clinical developments in the biopharmaceutical industry in general and in Somanta's compounds under development in particular; the potential failure of Somanta's compounds under development to prove safe and effective for treatment of disease; uncertainties inherent in the early stage of Somanta's compounds under development; failure to successfully implement or complete clinical trials; failure to receive marketing clearance from regulatory agencies for our compounds under development; acquisitions, divestitures, mergers, licenses or strategic initiatives that change Somanta's business, structure or projections; the development of competing products; uncertainties related to Somanta's dependence on third parties and partners; and those risks described in Somanta's filings with the SEC. Somanta disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.