ALLON COMPLETES DOSING IN CLINICAL TRIALS FOR AL-208 PRODUCT

Allon Therapeutics has completed dosing for its Phase I human clinical trial evaluating the company's product AL-208 as a treatment for mild cognitive impairment associated with cardiac artery bypass graft surgery.

AL-208 was administered intravenously to six dose groups totaling 48 healthy adults and two additional dose groups totaling 16 healthy elderly adults in a single-dose, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, sequential and ascending study to evaluate primarily the safety and pharmacokinetic results. The company expects to release data in 2006.

Mild cognitive impairment is a common result of damage to brain tissue that often occurs after cardiac artery bypass graft surgery (commonly known as bypass surgery). Some studies estimate that postsurgical cognitive impairment can occur in up to 90 percent of the cases in the first week post-surgery, that more than 50 percent of patients show impairment when discharged from the hospital, and that 24 percent continue to show impairment after six months.