Melior Pharmaceuticals Announces Entry Into “Letter-of-Intent” for the Acquisition of Armesocarb by Adhera Therapeutics

• Under the terms of the intended acquisition:
  • Adhera will continue clinical development of MLR-1019
  • Melior Pharmaceuticals will receive Adhera stock plus royalties

EXTON, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#MLR1019--Melior Pharmaceuticals (Melior) announced that it has signed a “letter of intent” with Adhera Therapeutics, Inc . (OTCPK: ATRX; Adhera) for the acquisition of Melior’s Parkinson’s disease (PD) candidate, MLR-1019 (armesocarb).

As with all of Melior’s drug candidates, MLR-1019 is a repositioned drug that has demonstrated safety and tolerability in previous clinical studies.

Melior has uncovered a previously unreported therapeutic potential of MLR-1019 in PD. As such it represents a new class of PD therapeutic which may be the only drug candidate to address both movement and non-movement aspects of PD. Based upon Melior’s thorough understanding of the drug’s mechanism, an accumulation of a substantial amount of PD animal model data, as well as anecdotes from previous clinical use of the drug, Melior has built confidence in the drug’s utility in benefiting multiple aspects of PD.

Under the terms of the intended deal Melior will acquire shares of Adhera stock as well as royalties on product revenues.

“We are thrilled to be working with the Adhera team and are pleased that they share our vision for the product potential of armesocarb and the streamlined clinical development path, based upon the product’s history, that we have developed,” said Dr. Andrew Reaume, CEO of Melior.

About Melior

Melior Discovery and its sister companies, Melior Pharmaceuticals I, Inc. and Melior Pharmaceuticals II, LLC, are leaders in pharmaceutical drug repositioning using the unique theraTRACE® platform comprised of multiplexed in vivo disease models. Melior is using these capabilities to build an internal pipeline of development candidates and also partners with pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies to apply the theraTRACE® platform and its in-depth in vivo pharmacology expertise to their development candidates. Melior Discovery and Melior Pharmaceuticals are privately held and located in Exton, PA. For more information, visit www.meliordiscovery.com and www.meliorpharma.com.

About Adhera Therapeutics

Adhera Therapeutics is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on identifying advanced drug candidates that may qualify for accelerated developmental pathways. Adhera’s legacy assets include CEQ508, an oral delivery of small interfering RNA (siRNA) against beta-catenin, to suppress polyps in the precancerous syndrome and orphan indication Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (FAP). The Company has signed a Letter of Intent to acquire MLR-1019 (armesocarb) for Parkinson’s Disease from Melior Pharmaceuticals II, LLC and is actively exploring additional pipeline additions.

Andrew Reaume, Ph.D., MBA
President and CEO
Melior Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
(+1) 610-280-0633 ext 239
e-mail: areaume@meliorpharma.com