Lupus Foundation of America Applauds Aspreva Pharmaceuticals For Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Life-Threatening DiseaseWASHINGTON, May 16, 2006--The Lupus Foundation of America (LFA) has honored ASPREVA Pharmaceuticals for the company's efforts to develop a new therapy for lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease. Richard Glickman, ASPREVA Chairman and CEO, Noel Hall, President, and Dr. Michael Hayden, Chief Medical Advisor, accepted the Corporate Leadership Award on the company's behalf during the third annual LFA Awards Gala held on May 10 in Washington, DC.
During the ceremony, Richard Glickman announced two matching grants to the LFA that will generate as much as $250,000 to support a special lupus research fund. ASPREVA Pharmaceuticals will match two-to-one funds generated through the sale of the 2005 NBC TODAY Show Green Room Book, which was auctioned on eBay earlier this year. In addition, Mr. Glickman, Mr. Hall and Dr. Hayden will personally match additional contributions to the fund. The fund will support a lupus research grant to be awarded in memory of Kassie McMullin Biglow, a young mother from Ohio who passed away from complications of lupus in October of 2004, one day before her 31st birthday. Her touching story inspired the NBC TODAY show staff to select the LFA to receive proceeds from this year's Green Room Book auction. ASPREVA Pharmaceuticals was founded in 2001 to partner with pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies to find new uses for approved drugs and drug candidates. The company, with a focus on developing evidence-based medicines for diseases where there is an unmet medical need, is currently conducting clinical studies on Roche's drug CellCept to determine its effectiveness in treating certain autoimmune diseases, one of which is lupus kidney disease. CellCept is approved to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients. The company is located in Victoria, British Columbia, and has offices in the United States, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The LFA is the nation's leading nonprofit voluntary health organization dedicated to finding the causes and cure for lupus. Lupus causes inflammation and tissue damage to virtually any organ system in the body and affects at least five million people worldwide, mostly women. For more information about lupus, visit the LFA's website or call toll-free 888-38-LUPUS. Contact: Duane Peters, 202-349-1145, peters@lupus.org |
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