Adeona Pharmaceuticals gets more grant money to continue work on multiple-sclerosis drug

Adeona Pharmaceuticals Inc. said today that it has received a grant of $409,426 from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society to help fund an ongoing Phase II U.S. Food and Drug Administration trial of Trimesta, a hormone that shows promise in reducing relapses among female patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. The 150-patient, randomized, double-blind study is under way at 15 centers in the U.S., with 127 patients enrolled so far. Adeona (Amex: AEN), a pharmaceutical company based in Ann Arbor, licensed Trimesta from the University of California, Los Angeles. The trial previously received more than $6 million in grant funding, including $5 million from National MS Society and the society’s Southern California chapter and $860,440 from the federal government’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Adeona, which also has developed or licensed drugs to target Alzheimer’s disease, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis and age-related macular degeneration, will hold a teleconference at 4:30 p.m. Thursday to discuss earnings results for 2010 and the quarter that ended Dec. 31.

Ann Arbor pharmaceutical company acquires southern California laboratory

An Ann Arbor pharmaceutical company announced today that it acquired a laboratory in Orange County, Calif., in a move to return the company to profitability.

Adeona Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is developing late-stage drugs to treat such diseases as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, acquired Colwell Clinical Laboratories Inc., which serves one of the largest physician markets in the country.

Colwell intends to remain an independent laboratory.

But Adeona hopes to increase the laboratory's ability to diagnose, prevent and treat the effects of patients having incorrect levels of zinc and copper in their bodies. It's part of Adeona's (AMEX:AEN) plan to increase the number of laboratories competent for testing in those areas.

Colwell is an independent CLIA-certified clinical laboratory in Santa Ana. The laboratory serves same-day clinical laboratory needs for physicians and has annual revenues of appoximately $750,000.