Hemispherx Challenges False Accusations in Recent Online and Social Media Postings
Based upon numerous Hemispherx stockholder requests, Hemispherx Biopharma, Inc. (NYSE MKT: HEB) (the “Company” or “Hemispherx”) has posted the report and findings of the recent efficacy study of Ampligen® in a mouse model of Ebola virus infection performed by scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID). The posted USAMRIID report conclusively refutes false and defamatory blog and online statements by TheStreet.com’s blogger Adam Feuerstein and invalidates Feuerstein’s negative social media postings about the company’s press release that was issued on February 2, 2015.
As requested by stockholders, the USAMRIID report can now be viewed in its entirety on the company’s website: www.hemispherx.net.
“Anyone who reads the USAMRIID report can see Feuerstein is wrong. This is blatant short mongering at its worst,” said Thomas K. Equels, Hemispherx’ Executive Vice Chairman. “Feuerstein’s defamation of these results hurts not only the company’s stockholders; it impedes development of an important experimental therapeutic that could save thousands of lives in West Africa.”
Equels said, “This recent study is breakthrough information regarding Ebola therapy. The US Army scientists challenged mice with a mouse adapted Ebola virus. 100% of the Ampligen® treated mice at the lowest dose of 6 mg/kg survived the 21 day course of the experiment. However, the placebo group challenged with Ebola all died within seven days. Ampligen activates the innate immunity inhibited by the Ebola virus and is relatively insensitive to viral mutational drift, which remains a potential problem for developmental therapeutics that are dependent on invariant targets of viral protein structure. No other host immune based experimental therapy, that we are aware of, has achieved to date similar results in animal experimentation against the Ebola virus. Further, Ampligen® has an extensive long-term safety record in humans derived from our clinical work. The safety profile is appropriate given the high and rapid mortality rates from Ebola. Unlike other experimental therapies, a stockpile supply of the experimental therapeutic Ampligen® is available.
Hemispherx believes erroneous short seller rhetoric cannot be without consequence in the biotech industry. False statements such as Feuerstein’s must, at a minimum, be corrected publicly. “Mr. Feuerstein maligned this important discovery by choosing to focus on falsely discrediting this information and even questioning the collaboration of Hemispherx’s with USAMRIID,” said Equels. “Our collaboration with USAMRIID was centered solely on conducting these Ebola efficacy tests, in vitro and in vivo, in their independent government laboratory. The now publicly posted report is irrefutable proof of the collaboration between USAMRIID and Hemispherx. It is also irrefutable proof of the positive results obtained in this study. These results compel Hemispherx to move forward its experimental therapeutic Ampligen® in the fight against this dread disease plaguing West Africa and to continue to work diligently with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other international organizations committed to the effort to mitigate the ongoing morbidity and mortality of Ebola.”
About Ampligen®
Ampligen®, an experimental therapeutic, is a new class of specifically-configured ribonucleic acid (RNA) compounds targeted as potential treatment of diseases with immunologic defects and/or viral causation. Ebola virus specifically inhibits the dsRNA within cells via a sequestration process. Such RNA would otherwise cause a robust antiviral response to be mounted: Ampligen® may be able to overcome this deficiency in host response. Positive results against Ebola in vitro have been reported to the Company by the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and other research/academic institutions in the US and abroad. Clinical protocol development is being pursued. Clinical trial data will be necessary to establish human efficacy of Ampligen® for Ebola viruses.