Nutrition 21 Receives Milestone Payment for New Antibacterial Drug Candidate

PURCHASE, N.Y. - Nutrition 21, Inc. today announced that Biosynexus Inc. of Rockville, Md., made a clinical trial milestone payment to Nutrition 21. Biosynexus is Nutrition 21's licensee for nisin and lysostaphin antibacterial technologies for development and marketing of new drugs for human use. Biosynexus develops products for the prevention and treatment of serious bacterial infections.

Biosynexus as a result of initiating a clinical trial, made its first milestone payment to Nutrition 21. The Biosynexus agreements provide for future payments to Nutrition 21 of up to $14 million, contingent upon the achievement by Biosynexus of certain additional milestones; royalties to Nutrition 21 upon commercialization of human drug products from these technologies; and potential other consideration contingent on future transactions between Biosynexus and third parties that relate to nisin or lysostaphin.

Gail Montgomery, Nutrition 21's president and chief executive officer, said, "Our business strategy is to leverage our intellectual property portfolio for maximum return to our shareholders. We are pleased to be working with Biosynexus, who has demonstrated its abilities to further Nutrtion 21's patented technologies, having reached an important milestone in commercializing lysostaphin as a therapy for the prevention and treatment of infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria."

According to the Institute of Medicine as many as 100,000 annual deaths are attributable to preventable adverse patient events associated with hospital acquired antibiotic resistant infections, at an estimated cost of $17 billion to $29 billion.

Nutrition 21 is a leading developer and provider of nutritional products whose health benefits are substantiated by clinical research. The market leader in nutritional chromium, Nutrition 21 currently holds 35 patents for nutrition products, 22 for chromium compounds and their uses.