ALT Ishares Diversified Alternatives Trust

Alteon Names Judith Hedstrom Chief Operating Officer PARSIPPANY, N.J., Dec. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alteon Inc. (AMEX:ALT) today announced the promotion of Judith Hedstrom to Chief Operating Officer. Ms. Hedstrom joined Alteon in February 2002 as Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, and has been responsible for Alteon's commercial operations, especially the activities related to the development of alagebrium, Alteon's lead A.G.E. crosslink breaker compound. Ms. Hedstrom joined Alteon from McKinsey & Company, Inc., where she was a leader in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Products Practice, serving both large and emerging pharma clients. With over 20 years in the health care industry, Ms. Hedstrom's expertise is in building the interfaces between R&D, product development and marketing. She previously served as Vice President of Business Development at APACHE Medical Systems, and as a Senior Consultant at The Wilkerson Group, Inc. She began her career in product development at Baxter International. Ms. Hedstrom holds an M.B.A. in Finance and Marketing and a B.A. in Chemistry from The University of Chicago. "During the past three years, Judy has focused her significant experience on helping Alteon address the challenges that face emerging companies," said Kenneth I. Moch, President and Chief Executive Officer of Alteon. "She has been a key member of our leadership team, and has served as an important force in the creation and implementation of our programs for alagebrium. I am very pleased to recognize her for these ongoing contributions." About Alteon Alteon is developing several new classes of drugs that have shown the potential to reverse or slow down diseases of aging and complications of diabetes. These compounds have an impact on a fundamental pathological process caused by the progressive formation of protein-glucose complexes called Advanced Glycation End-products (A.G.E.s). The formation and crosslinking of A.G.E.s lead to a loss of flexibility and function in body tissues and organs and have been shown to be a causative factor in many age-related diseases and diabetic complications. Alteon has created a library of novel classes of compounds targeting the A.G.E. pathway. Alteon's lead compound alagebrium chloride (formerly ALT-711), the only A.G.E. Crosslink Breaker in advanced human testing, has demonstrated safety and efficacy in several Phase 2 trials and is actively being developed for systolic hypertension and heart failure. Over 1200 patients have been involved in alagebrium's human clinical trials to date, of whom approximately 900 have received active compound. Ongoing clinical trials include the phase 2b systolic hypertension trial, SPECTRA (Systolic Pressure Efficacy and Safety Trial of Alagebrium), and the phase 2a heart failure trial, PEDESTAL (Patients with Impaired Ejection Fraction and Diastolic Dysfunction: Efficacy and Safety Trial of ALagebrium), as well as a third trial exploring mechanism of action in endothelial dysfunction. For more detailed information about alagebrium, please visit the scientific publications section of the Alteon website, http://www.alteon.com/. Any statements contained in this press release that relate to future plans, events or performance are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, those relating to technology and product development (including the possibility that early clinical trial results may not be predictive of results that will be obtained in large-scale testing or that any clinical trials will not demonstrate sufficient safety and efficacy to obtain requisite approvals or will not result in marketable products), regulatory approval processes, intellectual property rights and litigation, competitive products, ability to obtain financing, and other risks identified in Alteon's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The information contained in this press release is accurate as of the date indicated. Actual results, events or performance may differ materially. Alteon undertakes no obligation to publicly release the result of any revision to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. DATASOURCE: Alteon Inc. CONTACT: Susan M. Pietropaolo, Director, Corporate Communications & Investor Relations of Alteon Inc., +1-201-818-5537 (direct), or Web site: http://www.alteonpharma.com/

Copyright