OXiGENE Announces Name Change to Mateon Therapeutics
18 June 2016 - 12:15AM
OXiGENE, Inc. (Nasdaq:OXGN), a biopharmaceutical company developing
vascular disrupting agents (VDAs) for orphan oncology indications,
today announced that it has changed its name to Mateon
Therapeutics, Inc., effective immediately. On the NASDAQ Capital
Market, the name change will be effective for trading purposes as
of market open on June 20, 2016. At that time, shares of Mateon’s
common stock will begin trading under the new ticker symbol “MATN”.
In connection with the name change, Mateon’s common stock has been
assigned a new CUSIP number of 57667K109.
“Today’s name change signals a new day for
vascular targeted therapies and our commitment to integrate them
into the cancer treatment paradigm,” said William D. Schwieterman,
M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Mateon. “Over the
past year, we redefined our clinical and regulatory strategies to
position the company and our lead product candidate, CA4P, on what
we believe to be the shortest path towards approval in an
indication with the highest probability of success.”
Since joining the company in May 2015, Dr.
Schwieterman has built a world-class management and clinical
development team with deep expertise in drug development. Dr.
Schwieterman concluded, “With our team and strategy now firmly in
place, we are ready to build upon the work of the past and are
committed to realizing the full potential of combination vascular
targeted therapy in orphan oncology indications.”
OXiGENE was named for its founding technology of
oxygen-mediated radiosensitizers. The new company name, Mateon
Therapeutics, is derived from the company’s location in San Mateo
County, the birthplace of biotechnology.
About Mateon Therapeutics,
Inc.
Mateon Therapeutics, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical
company seeking to realize the full potential of vascular targeted
therapy (VTT) in orphan oncology indications. VTT includes vascular
disrupting agents (VDAs) such as the investigational drugs that
Mateon is developing, and anti-angiogenic agents (AAs), a number of
which are FDA-approved and widely used in cancer treatment. These
two approaches have distinct yet complementary mechanisms of
action.
At Mateon, we believe that we can significantly
improve cancer therapy by employing these two complementary
approaches in combination. When utilized this way, VDAs disrupt
existing blood vessels in the tumor leading to significant central
tumor cell death while AAs prevent the formation of new tumor blood
vessels.
Mateon is committed to leveraging our
intellectual property and the product development expertise of our
highly experienced management team to enable VTT to realize its
true potential and to bring much-needed new therapies to cancer
patients worldwide.
The URL for the company’s website will become
www.mateon.com beginning June 20, 2016. Visitors to the company’s
former URL, www.oxigene.com, will be redirected for a period of
time to the new URL.
Safe Harbor Statement
This news release contains "forward-looking
statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995. Any or all of the forward-looking statements in
this press release, which include the timing of advancement,
outcomes, data and regulatory guidance relative to our clinical
programs and achievement of our business and financing objectives
may turn out to be wrong. Forward-looking statements can be
affected by inaccurate assumptions Mateon might make or by known or
unknown risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the
sufficiency of Mateon’s cash balances to allow it to collect and
present data from planned and ongoing clinical trials, the inherent
risks of drug development, manufacturing and regulatory review, and
the availability of additional financing to pursue and continue
development of our programs. Additional information concerning
factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from
those in the forward-looking statements is contained in Mateon's
reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 10-K,
10-Q and 8-K, including the reports filed when the Company was
named OXiGENE, Inc. However, Mateon undertakes no obligation to
publicly update forward-looking statements, whether because of new
information, future events or otherwise. Please refer to our Annual
Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31,
2015.
CONTACTS
Investors:
ir@oxigene.com
650-635-7000
Media:
JPA Health Communications
Nic DiBella
nic@jpa.com
617-945-5183