Tacere Therapeutics Achieves Significant Milestone in Collaboration & License Agreement with Pfizer

Feb. 4, 2010 - PRLog -- San Jose, California—Tacere Therapeutics, Inc., an RNA interference (RNAi)-based therapeutics company, announced today that Pfizer has exercised the option, granted in a collaboration and license agreement executed in December 2007, to further develop and commercialize Tacere’s Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) compounds.

"After two years of collaboration with Pfizer, and demonstration of an excellent safety profile in both mice and non-human primates, Pfizer has exercised its option for an exclusive license to our RNAi-HCV family of compounds," said Sara M. Hall, Chief Executive Officer of Tacere. "This is a significant achievement for the field of expressed RNAi therapeutics and an exciting advance for our unique technology. The lead clinical candidate is a new class of agent containing three separate RNAi elements, simultaneously targeting three different sites of the Hepatitis C virus, and encapsidated in an adeno-associated virus (AAV) protein coat.  In preclinical animal studies, we have demonstrated that a single intravenous injection of our agent results in penetration of hepatocytes (the site of HCV replication) at sufficiently high levels to potentially eradicate HCV.  After years of developing this "cocktail in one drug", it is incredibly satisfying to see our efforts rewarded and expectations exceeded."

Mike Catelani, Chairman, President and CFO of Tacere, stated, "We are very excited that Pfizer has exercised its option to fully partner our RNAi-HCV family of compounds and has paid to Tacere a significant option exercise fee.  Further, Tacere and Pfizer have agreed to maintain their partnership for another year in order to complete regulatory toxicology studies, with Pfizer maintaining funding for all aspects of this collaboration."

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About Tacere Therapeutics, Inc.
Tacere is an innovative biotechnology company focused on developing therapeutics to treat serious infectious diseases using its proprietary knowledge in the development of RNAi therapeutics. Tacere is located in the San Jose BioCenter, San Jose, California, USA. For additional information, please visit www.tacerebio.com.

About the San Jose BioCenter
The San Jose BioCenter is a $15M life science and cleantech incubator providing state-of-the-art laboratory facilities, specialized research equipment, and best-in-class business support services. Our mission is to provide entrepreneurs with that "Big Company Advantage" through facilities, equipment, resources, contacts and expertise they need to commercialize their technology. Since inception, the life science and clean technology companies of the BioCenter have raised more than $1B in deals and financing, and have created more than 800 direct jobs. For more information, visit www.sjbiocenter.com.