Phytomedics Inc. and Degussa AG Enter Strategic Collaboration

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 Ushering a new era of multiple-mechanism therapeutics

Dayton, N.J., January 22, 2002; Phytomedics Inc., a private biotechnology company, is pleased to announce the signing of an agreement with Degussa BioActives, one of the twenty-two business units of Degussa AG which is the largest specialty chemical company in the world. The objective of the agreement is to co-develop, produce and market PMI-5011, a proprietary botanical healthcare product with oral anti diabetic activity.

"We are very pleased to be working with Degussa BioActives, a world leader in developing dietary supplements that improve human health," said Dr. Bertold Fridlender, CEO of Phytomedics Inc. "Degussa BioActives's expertise in the areas of dietary supplements, functional foods and specialty nutrition complements Phytomedics' unique and proprietary discovery and development technologies. This synergy presents an opportunity for the commercialization of a new generation of novel, safe and effective botanical healthcare products."

More than 16 million people in the United States have diabetes, of which over 90 percent are type II diabetics. Type II diabetes patients usually cannot utilize insulin effectively, leading to increased levels of glucose in the blood stream and serious health complications such as kidney failure, stroke, amputation, blindness, cardiovascular disease, impotence and nervous system damage. While existing synthetic oral hypoglycemic drugs have been useful, they all have serious side effects and tend to lose their effectiveness over time.

PMI-5011 is a product of Phytomedics' pioneering technologies used to develop a new generation of safe, standardized, optimized and efficacious botanical therapeutics. These technologies combine targeted screening, bioinformatics and computational drug design approaches that usher a post-genomic era of drug and dietary supplement development. Phytomedics' technologies can naturally enhance a plant's ability to synthesize various healing compounds. These compounds, acting in synergy, greatly increase the safety and efficacy of PMI-5011, making it one of the first multiple-mechanism therapeutic products and opening a new dimension to disease treatment and prevention.

"While the benefit of synergistically acting plant components is well known, it has never been fully utilized in human healthcare. Phytomedics is able to move beyond the conventional 'one molecule-one medicine' approach, into the arena of multiple mechanism therapy," says Fridlender.

Phytomedics conducts its R&D under the leadership of Professor Ilya Raskin, Ph.D., at the Biotech Center of Rutgers University, who is also a founder and Chairman of the Company. Phytomedics has a broad research and licensing agreement with Rutgers University that allows the Company to exclusively license its core technologies and products.

Phytomedics has several botanical therapeutics in various stages of development for both pharmaceutical and nutraceutical markets, including products for viral, inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases, cancer, erectile dysfunction and sleep improvement, some of which are in clinical trials.

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