Achieve Life Sciences Announces Closing of Merger with OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals

Achieve Life Sciences, Inc. announced the closing of its previously announced merger with OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, as a result of which the stockholders of Achieve have become the majority stockholders of OncoGenex. OncoGenex has been renamed Achieve Life Sciences and the operations and employees of OncoGenex and Achieve have combined to carry on as a fully-integrated late-stage smoking cessation company.

Achieve Life Sciences will continue to be headquartered in Bothell, WA with its existing operations in Vancouver, B.C, and is focused on the clinical and commercial development of cytisine, a selective nicotine receptor partial agonist currently in late-stage development for smoking cessation.

Cytisine is an established smoking cessation treatment that has been approved and marketed in Central and Eastern Europe for more than 15 years. It is estimated that over 20 million people have used cytisine to help combat nicotine addiction, including approximately 2,000 patients in Phase 3 clinical trials conducted in Europe and New Zealand. Achieve expects to commence a large-scale, placebo-controlled Phase 3 trial of cytisine in the United States within the first-half of 2018.

“Cytisine is a drug of global public health importance and the transition of Achieve to the public markets is a critical step in advancing our development program,” commented Rick Stewart, Chairman and CEO of Achieve Life Science. “With our combined resources and the extraordinary level of collaboration between the teams, we believe we are now well-positioned to execute our plans to bring forward a new treatment option for people battling nicotine addiction.”

Two, large-scale clinical studies of cytisine, with favorable outcomes, have been successfully completed by third parties. The TASC trial was a 740 patient, double-blind, placebo controlled trial conceived by Professor Robert West at University College London and funded by the U.K. National Prevention Research Initiative. The CASCAID trial was a 1,310 patient, single-blind, non-inferiority trial comparing cytisine to nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). The CASCAID trial was conceived by Dr. Natalie Walker, National Institute for Health Innovation, University of Auckland and funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

Immediately prior to the completion of the merger, on August 1, 2017, a 1-for-11 reverse stock split of the company’s common stock became effective. Following the merger and the reverse stock split of its outstanding common stock, Achieve has approximately 10.9 million shares of common stock outstanding. The company’s common stock will commence trading on The NASDAQ Capital Market on a post-reverse stock split basis under the name Achieve Life Sciences, Inc. and the symbol “ACHV” on August 3, 2017.