Sigmoid provides financial and product development update

May 19 2012

Sigmoid Pharma Ltd. (Sigmoid), a privately-owned, specialty pharmaceutical and drug delivery company registered in Ireland, today provides an update on significant progress in 2011 and 2012. Sigmoid's AGM takes place today at 5 pm GMT

• Product development pipeline update
  CyCol™, Sigmoid's lead candidate for ulcerative colitis has completed a Phase II multi-centre, placebo-controlled, randomised clinical trial in more than 100 patients. Plans are underway to further evaluate CyCol™ in pivotal clinical trials.

• Technology development update
  Sigmoid's SmPill™ proprietary oral drug delivery technology has demonstrated benefit in
  
  • targeting delivery of poorly soluble drugs to the GI tract
  • improving permeability and oral bioavailability of peptides
  • facilitating oral delivery of vaccines in dosage forms that are stable at room temperature.

• Organisational update
  Sigmoid has appointed Thomas G. Lynch as Chairman of the board, Gerard Ryan as a non-executive Director of the board, Dr. David Roblin as Chief Medical Officer, and Rosemarie Tully as Chief Business Officer.

• Medical and Scientific Expert Committee established
  Sigmoid has secured the support of leading international thought leaders in gastroenterology and immunology who will advise on the appropriate development of CyCol™ and Sigmoid's follow on gastrointestinal disease and vaccine pipeline programmes.

• Financial Update
  Sigmoid has closed a private financing round of over €3 million (US $4 million) in Q1 2012. Andreas McConnell of Philip Lee Solicitors advised Sigmoid in the fund-raising. Sigmoid has secured EU FP7 funding as part of the ADITEC Advanced immunization technologies consortium and TRANS-INT oral nanomedicine consortium.

Dr. Ivan Coulter, founder and CEO of Sigmoid said "I am delighted with the significant progress made at Sigmoid over the past 18 months, and believe Sigmoid is well positioned as we transition from pre-proof of concept stage to an emerging speciality pharmaceutical company with the promise of meaningful therapeutic interventions for unmet patient needs as well as having advanced drug delivery technologies to address the ongoing industry challenges of poor aqueous solubility, poor permeability, gastrointestinal targeting and product stability".

Thomas G. Lynch, chairman of the Board of Sigmoid said "Sigmoid is at a very exciting stage and is poised for growth on a number of fronts. I look forward to being involved in steering Sigmoid's evolution towards a revenue-generating, profitable pharmaceutical company that can bring real benefits to patients and people at risk of disease in the developed and developing word.

"Dr. David Roblin commented "After leaving Pfizer, I decided to work with companies that I believe are advancing exciting science and technologies with a strong likelihood of bringing important new medicines to patients and value to investors. I was attracted to Sigmoid because of the team's innovative approach rooted in sound scientific evidence. Building on its broadly-applicable SmPill™ oral drug delivery technology as well as a deep understanding of gastrointestinal disease, Dr. Coulter and his team have the potential to bring new treatment options to patients in areas of clinical practice where these breakthroughs can have real impact."