Phylogica and Pfizer Complete First Stage of Peptide Vaccine Collaboration

PERTH, AUSTRALIA--(Marketwire - Dec 15, 2011) - Phylogica Ltd (ASX: PYC) (XETRA: PH7), a public Australian peptide drug discovery company, announced today the successful completion of the first stage of its collaboration with Pfizer to discover novel peptide-based vaccines. Under the terms of the agreement, Phylogica will receive an undisclosed milestone payment.

Phylogica and Pfizer entered into the collaboration in December 2010. Under the collaboration, Phylogica has successfully identified several peptides from its Phylomer® libraries that will be further evaluated for their potential as candidate antigens for a vaccine against an undisclosed disease target.

Commenting on the news, Phylogica's CEO, Dr Paul Watt, said: "We are very pleased to report the successful completion of the initial phase of our collaboration with Pfizer. We have identified multiple novel Phylomers that meet the criteria required for further evaluation by Pfizer. This provides additional support for the potential value of our Phylomer® libraries as a source of novel peptide drug candidates."

About Phylogica
Phylogica Limited (ASX: PYC) is a biotechnology company based in Perth, Australia, and Oxford, UK, with a world-class drug discovery platform harnessing the rich biodiversity of nature to discover novel peptide therapeutics. The Company was incorporated in 2001 as a spin out from the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research (Perth, Australia) and the Fox Chase Cancer Centre (Philadelphia, USA). The Company's drug discovery platform is based on its proprietary Phylomer^® libraries of natural peptides, which have been optimised by evolutionary selection to have stable drug-like structures. Phylogica offers fully integrated drug discovery services to the pharmaceutical industry utilising its Phylomer^® libraries and proprietary screening technologies. Its current partners include Roche, MedImmune (the worldwide biologics arm of AstraZeneca) and Pfizer.

About Phylomer^® Peptides
Phylomer peptides are derived from biodiverse natural sequences, which have been selected by evolution to form stable structures, which can bind tightly, and specifically to disease associated target proteins, both inside and outside cells. Suitable targets for blockade by Phylomers include protein interactions that promote multiple diseases, such as infectious diseases, cancer, autoimmunity and heart disease. Phylomer peptides can have drug-like properties, including specificity, potency and thermal stability, and are capable of being produced by synthetic or recombinant manufacturing processes. Phylomer peptides are also readily formulated for administration by a number of means, including parenteral or intranasal delivery approaches.