Inhibitex Reports Clinical Developments, Trading +17%

Palm Beach, FL 11/29/11 (StreetBeat) --Inhibitex, Inc. (NASDAQ:INHX) today announced several recent clinical and corporate developments, including top-line safety and antiviral data from its ongoing clinical trial designed to evaluate additional doses of INX-189, an oral nucleotide polymerase inhibitor being developed to treat chronic infections caused by hepatitis C virus (HCV), administered as monotherapy or in combination with ribavirin (RBV) for seven days.

“We believe the significant increase in antiviral activity demonstrated with 100 mg INX-189 in combination with RBV, as compared to 100 mg INX-189 dosed as monotherapy, further confirms the antiviral synergy between INX-189 and RBV that we have consistently observed in preclinical and clinical results to-date,” stated Dr. Joseph Patti, Senior Vice President and CSO of Inhibitex, Inc. “We look forward to further exploring this antiviral synergy with 200 mg of INX-189 and expanding the scope of our ongoing and planned Phase 2 clinical trials to include interferon-free combinations of INX-189 with other antiviral agents in HCV genotype 1, 2, and 3 patients in 2012.”

Recent Corporate Developments
INX-189 for Chronic Hepatitis C – The Company today reported top-line safety and antiviral data from an ongoing Phase 1b extension trial of INX-189, which is designed to further evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and antiviral activity of various doses of INX-189, administered as monotherapy or in combination with RBV, for seven days in treatment-naïve patients infected with chronic HCV genotype 1. In the ongoing trial, 100 mg INX-189, dosed once-daily for seven days in combination with RBV, continued to demonstrate potent and dose-dependent synergistic antiviral activity with a median HCV RNA reduction from baseline of -3.79 log10 IU/mL.

Further, 100 mg INX-189 in combination with RBV was well tolerated and there were no serious adverse events. For comparison purposes, in a clinical trial completed earlier this year, 100 mg INX-189 dosed as monotherapy once-daily for seven days resulted in a median -2.53 log10 IU/mL reduction in HCV RNA levels. In this same clinical trial, the Company also reported antiviral data indicating that INX-189, when dosed once-daily at 9 and 25 mg in combination with RBV for seven days, demonstrated dose-dependent, synergistic antiviral activity.

The Company also reported today that, subject to regulatory review, it plans to further expand its ongoing Phase 1b extension trial to evaluate once-daily doses of 200 mg INX-189 in combination with RBV; 300 mg INX-189 as monotherapy; and 200 mg INX-005 (a single isomer of INX-189) as monotherapy, respectively, for seven days. The Company anticipates that the Phase 1b extension trial will be completed in the first quarter of 2012.

Additionally, the Company reported that it plans to submit a protocol amendment this quarter to its ongoing Phase 2 study in genotype 2 and 3 HCV-infected patients to include the evaluation of 100 mg and 200 mg of INX-189 dosed once-daily in combination with RBV for 12 weeks.

Financing Activity – The Company reported today that it had recently sold a total of 1,949,015 shares of common stock at an average price per share of $10.25 for total gross proceeds of $19,983,396 through its at-the-market (ATM) financing vehicle. The Company entered into a $20 million ATM financing arrangement with McNicoll, Lewis & Vlak LLC (MLV) in November 2010, which provides it the opportunity to sell registered shares into the open market through MLV from time-to-time under its effective shelf registration. After commissions, the Company received $19,383,274 in net proceeds. The intended use of the net proceeds is to support the expansion of the Company’s planned Phase 2 program for INX-189 in 2012 and for general corporate purposes.

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