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[Martin Murray]

DORB News:

DOR BioPharma Announces Release of Advisory Committee Briefing Documents by FDA

Monday , May 07, 2007 14:04 ET


MIAMI, FL -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 05/07/07 -- DOR BioPharma, Inc. (OTCBB: DORB) ("DOR" or "the Company") announced today that DOR's briefing document as well as the briefing document of the FDA have been posted by the FDA on the FDA's website at http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/07/briefing/2007-4301b1-00-index.htm.

Both briefing documents are designed to prepare the the FDA's Oncology Drug Advisory Committee ("ODAC") that will discuss the New Drug Application ("NDA") for orBec® (oral beclomethasone dipropionate) for the treatment of gastrointestinal Graft-versus-Host disease ("GI GVHD") on May 9, 2007.

"The ODAC meeting is the pivotal next step in the NDA review process," stated Christopher J. Schaber, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of DOR BioPharma. "In conjunction with our ODAC meeting, we have committed significant resources to the preparation for this important meeting in order to adequately express the clinical benefit and utility of orBec®. We are very pleased to have this opportunity to present the orBec® data in GI GVHD to the ODAC panel and we look forward to reviewing our clinical data with the FDA advisors."

The ODAC meeting will begin at 1 PM EDT on May 9 and take place at Hilton Washington DC/Silver Spring, 8727 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring, Maryland. The meeting will be open to the public. The FDA has previously said it will respond to DOR's NDA by July 21, 2007 in accordance with the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA).

The data provided in the NDA submission demonstrate that orBec® may provide a higher rate of survival when compared with the current standard of care, and a lowered exposure to systemic corticosteroids following allogeneic transplantation. Currently there are no approved products to treat GI GVHD. Thus an approval of orBec® would represent the first directed therapy for GI GVHD.

The NDA filing is supported by data from two randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trials. The first trial was a 129-patient pivotal Phase 3 multi-center clinical trial of orBec® conducted at 16 leading bone marrow/stem cell transplant centers in the U.S. and France. The second trial was a 60-patient Phase 2 single-center clinical trial conducted at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute. Although orBec® did not achieve statistical significance in the primary endpoint of its pivotal trial, namely time to treatment failure through Day 50 (p-value 0.1177), orBec® did achieve statistical significance in other key outcomes such as median time to treatment failure through Day 80 (p-value 0.0226) and, most importantly clinically, demonstrated a statistically significant long-term survival advantage compared with placebo.

In the pivotal Phase 3 trial, analysis of patient survival at the pre-specified endpoint of 200 days post-transplant showed a clinically meaningful and statistically significant 66% reduction (p-value 0.0139) in mortality among patients randomized to orBec®. In the pivotal Phase 3 trial, a subgroup analysis also revealed that patients dosed with orBec® who had received stem cells from unrelated donors had a 94% reduction in the risk of mortality 200 days post-transplant.

orBec® further showed continued survival benefit when compared to placebo one year after randomization in the pivotal Phase 3 trial. Overall, 18 patients (29%) in the orBec® group and 28 patients (42%) in the placebo group died within one year of randomization (46% reduction in mortality, hazard ratio 0.54, 95% CI: 0.30, 0.99, p=0.04, stratified log-rank test). Results from the Phase 2 trial also demonstrated enhanced long-term survival benefit with orBec® versus placebo. In that study, at one year after randomization, 6 of 31 patients (19%) in the orBec® group while 9 of 29 patients (31%) in the placebo group had died (45% reduction in mortality, p=0.26). Pooling the survival data from both trials demonstrated that the survival benefit of orBec® treatment was sustained long after orBec® was discontinued and extended well beyond 3 years after the transplant. The risk of mortality was 37% lower for patients randomized to orBec® compared with placebo (hazard ratio 0.63, p=0.03, stratified log-rank test).

About FDA Advisory Committees

To keep up with the challenges that the FDA's full-time experts face when reviewing innovative and rapidly evolving technologies, the agency hires "special government employees" whose opinions complement its goals to provide safe and effective products.

These outside advisers make up the FDA's technical and scientific advisory committees. The primary role of an advisory committee is to provide independent advice that will contribute to the quality of the agency's regulatory decision-making and lend credibility to the product review process. In this way, the FDA can make sound decisions about new medical products and other public health issues. And although advisory committees have a prominent role in the product approval stage, they are sometimes included earlier in the product development cycle and are asked to consider issues relating to products already on the market.

Committees typically are asked to comment on whether adequate data supports approval, clearance, or licensing of a medical product for marketing. Advisory committees also may recommend that the FDA request additional studies or suggest changes to a product's labeling. Their recommendations are just that -- advice -- and do not bind the agency to any decision. While committee discussions and final votes are very important to the FDA, the final regulatory decision rests with the agency.

Membership in advisory committees must be "fairly balanced" -- that is, as open and inclusive as possible -- according to the law. Committee membership is expected to include ethnic, gender, and geographic diversity, as well as people with recognized expertise and judgment in a specific field, such as clinicians and researchers. Most members of the FDA's drug advisory committees, for example, are physician-scientists whose specialties or research involve the kinds of products being reviewed. Other members might include statisticians, epidemiologists, nutritionists, and toxicologists -- experts in preclinical (animal) studies. The FDA also insists on getting industry and public perspectives, and nearly all committees include industry and consumer representation.

About GI GVHD

GVHD is a debilitating and painful disease. It is a common disorder among immunocompromised cancer patients after receiving allogeneic stem cell or bone marrow transplants. Unlike organ transplants where the patient's body may reject the organ, in GVHD it is the donor cells that begin to attack the patient's body -- most frequently the gut, liver and skin. Patients with mild-to-moderate GI GVHD typically develop symptoms of anorexia, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. If left untreated, GI GVHD can progress to ulcerations in the lining of the GI tract, and in its most severe form, can be fatal.

orBec® is a two-tablet system containing the highly potent, topically active corticosteroid beclomethasone dipropionate, and is designed to specifically target and treat upper and lower GI GVHD with reduced systemic immunosuppressive side effects. Systemic immunosuppressive agents such as prednisone, which are the current standard treatments for GI GVHD, are associated with high mortality rates due to infection and debility. Further, these drugs have not been approved for treating GI GVHD in the European Union or in the U.S., but rather are used off-label as investigational therapies for this indication.

About Allogeneic Bone Marrow/Stem Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT)

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation ("HSCT") is considered a potentially curative option for many leukemias as well as other forms of blood cancer. In an allogeneic HSCT procedure, hematopoietic stem cells are harvested from a closely matched relative or unrelated person, and are transplanted into the patient following either high-dose chemotherapy or intense immunosuppressive conditioning therapy. The curative potential of allogeneic HSCT is now partly attributed to the so-called graft-versus-leukemia ("GVL") or graft-versus-tumor ("GVT") effects of the newly transplanted donor cells to recognize and destroy malignant cells in the recipient patient.

The use of allogeneic HSCT has grown substantially over the last decade due to advances in human immunogenetics, the establishment of unrelated donor programs, the use of cord blood as a source of hematopoietic stem cells and the advent of non-myeloablative conditioning regimens ("mini-transplants") that avoid the side effects of high-dose chemotherapy. Based on the latest statistics available, it is estimated that there are more than 10,000 HSCT procedures annually in the U.S. and a comparable number in Europe. Estimates as to the current annual rate of increase in these procedures are as high as 20%. High rates of morbidity and mortality occur in this patient population. Clinical trials are also underway testing allogeneic HSCT for treatment of some metastatic solid tumors such as breast cancer, renal cell carcinoma, melanoma and ovarian cancer. Allogeneic transplants have also been used as curative therapy for several genetic disorders, including immunodeficiency syndromes, inborn errors of metabolism, thalassemia and sickle cell disease. The primary toxicity of allogeneic HSCT, however, is GVHD in which the newly transplanted donor cells damage cells in the recipient's gastrointestinal tract, liver and skin.

About orBec®

orBec® represents a first-of-its-kind oral, locally acting therapy tailored to treat the gastrointestinal manifestation of GVHD, the organ system where GVHD is most frequently encountered and highly problematic. orBec®, if approved by the EMEA and the FDA, would be the first oral formulation of beclomethasone dipropionate ("BDP") available in the European Union and the United States, respectively. orBec® is intended to reduce the need for systemic immunosuppressive drugs to treat GI GVHD. BDP is a highly potent, topically active corticosteroid that has a local effect on inflamed tissue. BDP has been marketed in the U.S. and worldwide since the early 1970s as the active pharmaceutical ingredient in a nasal spray and in a metered dose inhaler for the treatment of patients with allergic rhinitis and asthma. orBec® is formulated for oral administration as a single product consisting of two tablets; one tablet is intended to release BDP in the proximal portions of the GI tract and the other tablet is intended to release BDP in the more distal portions of the GI tract.

In addition to issued patents and pending worldwide patent applications held by or exclusively licensed to DOR, orBec® also benefits from orphan drug designations in the U.S. and in Europe for the treatment of GI GVHD, which provide for 7 and 10 years of post-approval market exclusivity, respectively.

About DOR BioPharma, Inc.

DOR BioPharma, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company developing products to treat life-threatening side effects of cancer treatments and serious gastrointestinal diseases, and vaccines for certain bioterrorism agents. DOR's lead product, orBec® (oral beclomethasone dipropionate), is a potent, locally acting corticosteroid being developed for the treatment of GI GVHD, a common and potentially life-threatening complication of bone marrow transplantation. DOR has filed an NDA with the FDA for the treatment of GI GVHD, and has received a PDUFA date of July 21, 2007. An MAA with the EMEA for orBec® has also been filed and validated. orBec® may also have application in treating other gastrointestinal disorders characterized by severe inflammation. DOR has also recently initiated a clinical development program with its Lipid Polymer Micelle ("LPM(TM)") oral drug delivery technology for the oral delivery of leuprolide for the treatment of prostate cancer and endometriosis.

Through its Biodefense Division, DOR is developing biomedical countermeasures pursuant to the recently enacted Project BioShield Act of 2004. DOR's biodefense products in development are recombinant subunit vaccines designed to protect against the lethal effects of exposure to ricin toxin and botulinum toxin. DOR's ricin toxin vaccine, RiVax(TM), has been shown to be safely tolerated and immunogenic in a Phase 1 clinical trial in normal volunteers.

For further information regarding DOR BioPharma, please visit the Company's website located at www.dorbiopharma.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements, within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, that reflect DOR BioPharma, Inc.'s current expectations about its future results, performance, prospects and opportunities, including statements regarding the potential use of orBec® for the treatment of gastrointestinal GVHD and the prospects for regulatory filings for orBec®. Where possible, DOR has tried to identify these forward-looking statements by using words such as "anticipates," "believes," "intends," or similar expressions. These statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results in future periods to differ materially from what is expressed in, or implied by, these statements. DOR also cannot assure you that it will be able to successfully develop or commercialize products based on its technology, including orBec®, particularly in light of the significant uncertainty inherent in developing vaccines against bioterror threats, manufacturing and conducting preclinical and clinical trials of vaccines, and obtaining regulatory approvals, that its technologies will prove to be safe and effective, that its cash expenditures will not exceed projected levels, that it will be able to obtain future financing or funds when needed, that product development and commercialization efforts will not be reduced or discontinued due to difficulties or delays in clinical trials or due to lack of progress or positive results from research and development efforts, that it will be able to successfully obtain any further grants and awards, maintain its existing grants which are subject to performance, enter into any biodefense procurement contracts with the U.S. Government or other countries, that the U.S. Congress may not pass any legislation that would provide additional funding for the Project BioShield program, that it will be able to patent, register or protect its technology from challenge and products from competition or maintain or expand its license agreements with its current licensors, or that its business strategy will be successful. Important factors which may affect the future use of orBec® for gastrointestinal GVHD include the risks that: because orBec® did not achieve statistical significance in its primary endpoint in the pivotal Phase III clinical study (i.e. a p-value of less than or equal to 0.05), the FDA may not consider orBec® approvable based upon existing studies, orBec® may not show therapeutic effect or an acceptable safety profile in future clinical trials, if required, or could take a significantly longer time to gain regulatory approval than DOR expects or may never gain approval; DOR is dependent on the expertise, effort, priorities and contractual obligations of third parties in the clinical trials, manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution of its products; or orBec® may not gain market acceptance; and others may develop technologies or products superior to orBec®. These and other factors are described from time to time in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, DOR's most recent reports on Form 10-QSB and Form 10-KSB. DOR assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, and changes in circumstances or for any other reason.

DOR BioPharma, Inc.
1101 Brickell Avenue
Miami, Florida 33131
www.dorbiopharma.com


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Company Contact:
Evan Myrianthopoulos
Chief Financial Officer
[phone]
www.dorbiopharma.com

Investor Contacts:
Lippert/Heilshorn & Associates

Anne Marie Fields
Email Contact
[phone]

Bruce Voss
Email Contact
[phone]

Source: DOR BioPharma, Inc.