DAYTON, N.J., June 15, 2005 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Phytomedics Inc., an innovative biopharmaceutical company merging health care and plant biotechnology to discover, develop and manufacture novel botanical therapeutics, announced today that it has become the exclusive licensee of U.S. patent #5,905,089, entitled "Use of sesquiterpene lactones for treatment of severe inflammatory disorders." Researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA and Louisiana State University, also in Baton Rouge, discovered and documented the powerful anti-inflammatory properties of sesquiterpene lactones.

"We are very pleased to add this important piece of intellectual property to our growing portfolio of botanical therapeutics," said Bertold Fridlender, President and CEO of Phytomedics Inc. "It further helps solidify strong patent protection around PMI-005, one of our important anti-inflammatory botanical drug candidates, and expands our market leadership in the area of developing novel, ethical pharmaceutical products for severe inflammatory disorders of substantial unmet medical need."

Phytomedics currently has an anti-inflammatory botanical drug candidate completing a 120-patient, 6-month, Phase II clinical trial for rheumatoid arthritis at 10 centers throughout the U.S. PMI-005 represents another novel, orally bioavailable, small molecule gene-transcription inhibitor of a variety of pro-inflammatory cytokines including a-TNF, i-NOS, IL-1 beta, and COX-2.

A core area of Phytomedics pharmaceutical program are botanical drugs, as recently defined by the U.S. FDA (http://www.fda.gov/cder/Offices/ODE_V_BRT/botanicalDrug.htm). Phytomedics sees this as a unique pharmaceutical niche that allows for the development of heterogenous plant derived products as ethical drugs in the U.S., and do it for reduced costs and time frames in comparison to new chemical entities or biologics, while retaining strong drug market exclusivity. Through state-of- the-art, proprietary approaches, Phytomedics' botanical therapeutics program reconnects plants and human health at a new level of technological sophistication.

About Phytomedics Inc.

Phytomedics Inc. (www.phytomedics.com) uses a broad and innovative proprietary technology platform to discover, develop and manufacture novel, multi-component and multi-functional botanical therapeutics such as botanical drugs and nutraceuticals, as well as recombinant proteins. Through this proprietary technology platform, the Company has produced a pipeline of compounds, several of which are in clinical development, some as far as Phase II. Founded by Professor Ilya Raskin, Ph.D., Phytomedics Inc. conducts most of its R&D at the Biotech Center of Rutgers University.

About the Pennington Biomedical Research Center

The Pennington Biomedical Research Center (http://www.pbrc.edu/) is a campus of the Louisiana State University System and conducts both clinical and basic research. It is the largest academically based nutrition research center

in the world, with the greatest number of obesity researchers on faculty. The Center's nearly 600 employees occupy several buildings on the 234-acre campus.

About Louisiana State University

LSU is committed to excellence at every level, offering a challenging academic and research environment in one of the most unique cultural settings in the nation. Visit www.lsu.edu/flagship to chart LSU's path to national prominence.