Idera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that it has achieved a milestone under its worldwide licensing and collaboration agreement with Merck KGaA upon the dosing of the first patient in a clinical study of IMO-2055 in combination with Erbitux and Camptosar in patients with colorectal cancer.

Under the terms of the agreement, the company is entitled to receive a payment of €3.0 million ($3.8 million) from Merck KGaA, the global pharmaceutical and chemical company based in Darmstadt, Germany.

"We are pleased with the initiation of the clinical study of IMO-2055 in combination with Erbitux and Camptosar in patients with colorectal cancer," said Alice Bexon, MBChB, vice president of clinical development. "The use of IMO-2055 with Erbitux is a further step in the combination of IMO-2055 with selected targeted agents in cancer treatment."

The company expects that it will receive the milestone payment of €3.0 million (approximately $3.8 million based on the currency exchange rate on January 30, 2009) from Merck KGaA during the second quarter of 2009. The clinical study is being conducted under the Company's Investigational New Drug application.

Idera Pharmaceuticals entered into a worldwide licensing and collaboration agreement with Merck KGaA of Germany in December 2007 for the research, development and commercialization of Idera's Toll-like Receptor 9 (TLR9) agonists for the treatment of cancer. In addition to the clinical study announced, under the company's collaboration with Merck KGaA, IMO-2055 is currently in a phase 1b clinical study in combination with Tarceva and Avastin in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

Idera Pharmaceuticals develops drug candidates to treat infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, cancer, and respiratory diseases, and for use as vaccine adjuvants.