Lpath, Inc., the category leader in lipidomics-based therapeutics, announced that Merck KGaA (Darmstadt, Germany), the exclusive worldwide licensee of Lpath's anti-cancer drug candidate, Asonep, proposed moving forward with the partnership via an extension of the opt-in deadline, which had been set for June 27, 2010.

However, the extension proposal from Merck KGaA included terms that were rejected by Lpath's board of directors as not being in the best interest of Lpath or its stockholders. Consequently, on March 25, 2010, Merck KGaA notified Lpath of its decision to terminate the License Agreement. According to the terms of the Agreement, the termination will be effective April 24, 2010, and upon termination, Merck KGaA will relinquish all rights to the Asonep programme.

"Lpath will aggressively seek to re-partner its Asonep programme," said Scott R. Pancoast, Lpath's president and CEO, "and based on the programme's many successes thus far, we're confident we will do so on terms that are more favourable to our stockholders than those offered by Merck KGaA. These compelling factors include strong efficacy signals from a wide spectrum of preclinical studies in animal models involving renal cell carcinoma, prostate cancer, neuroblastoma, ovarian cancer, and lung cancer, and now the successful completion of the phase 1 trial announced today that demonstrated an excellent safety profile and produced evidence of pharmacological activity in cancer patients."

San Diego-based Lpath, Inc., a therapeutic antibody company, is the category leader in lipidomics-based therapeutics, an emerging field of medicine that targets bioactive signaling lipids for treating a wide range of human disease.