February 2, 2010 (FinancialWire) — YM BioSciences Inc. (AMEX: YMI) (TSX: YM) said that the merger of Cytopia Ltd., an Australian biopharmaceutical company, into YM under a Scheme of Arrangement, has been concluded.

David Allan, chairman & CEO of YM BioSciences, said, “With the completion of this transaction, our pipeline has been expanded to incorporate Cytopia’s two lead clinical candidates, CYT387 and CYT997 and its impressive pre-clinical library.”

CYT387 is an oral JAK1/2 inhibitor, originating from the discovery of JAK1 and JAK2 by Dr. Andrew Wilks, the founder of Cytopia. A Phase I/II myelofibrosis study commenced in November 2009 at Mayo Clinic, and data on the safety and tolerability of CYT387 are anticipated in the second half of this year for this hematological condition.

CYT997, a vascular disrupting agent, has dual mechanisms of vascular disruption and cytotoxicity and has the potential to be broadly active against a range of tumor types, according to YM. The drug can be administered both orally and intravenously, which differentiates it from most other VDAs in development, the company said.

Under the terms of the merger transaction, YM has issued 7,276,688 YM shares to former Cytopia shareholders as consideration for all of the issued and outstanding Cytopia shares.

Canada-based YM BioSciences is currently developing four late-stage products.

FinancialWire(tm) is committed to serving the financial community through true journalism and providing relevant resources to investors. Standards-based, independent equity research on numerous public companies is available through the Investrend Research Syndicate (http://www.investrend.com/reports) written by FIRST Research Consortium (http://www.investrend.com/FIRST) member-providers. Free annual reports and company filings for companies mentioned in the news are available through the Investrend Information Syndicate (at http://investrend.ar.wilink.com/?level=279). FinancialWire(tm), in cooperation with the Investrend Broadcast Syndicate, also provides complete, daily conference call and webcast schedules as a service to shareholders and investors via the FirstAlert(tm) Network’s “FirstAlert(tm) Daily” (http://www.financialwire.net/news-alerts/).

FinancialWire(tm) is a fully independent, proprietary news wire service. FinancialWire(tm) is not a press release service, and receives no compensation for its news, opinions or distributions. Further disclosure is at the FinancialWire(tm) website (http://www.financialwire.net/disclosures.php). Contact FinancialWire(tm) directly via inquiries@financialwire.net.

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.