Active Biotech focuses the operations on the laquinimod project and adjusts the organization

Lund 1 June, 2015 - Active Biotech (NASDAQ STOCKHOLM: ACTI) today announces that the company has made a notification of planned redundancies of 47 of its employees, which means a significant down-sizing of the operations.

In April 2015, the results from the Phase III trial 10TASQ10 in castration-resistant prostate cancer patients were presented. The results showed that the primary endpoint of delaying disease progression was met. However, tasquinimod did not extend overall survival. As earlier communicated, these results lead to the discontinuation of the development of the candidate drug tasquinimod and the collaboration agreement with Ipsen. The scientific activities in the preclinical project ISI will also be discontinued and only commercial activities will be performed as of 2016. Since the majority of the employees have been engaged in these projects the company is now consequently forced to notify 47 employees of planned redundancies.

The clinical project laquinimod will be continued according to plan together with the collaboration partner Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. The next important milestone for the laquinimod project is the results from the ongoing Phase III study CONCERTO, with the primary endpoint of delaying disability progression in patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). The ANYARA and paquinimod projects remain for out-licensing and RhuDex is developed and fully financed by the partner MediGene.

A notification of planned redundancies has today been submitted to the local authorities ("Arbetsförmedlingen") for 47 employees out of 56. Active Biotech has also called for negotiations with the trade unions and contacts have been established with organizations such as the Swedish Employment Security Council regarding various support measures for the employees. The planned organizational change is estimated to be fully implemented as of 1 January, 2016.

A comprehensive work remains to compile all data from the 10TASQ10 study and to file the final study report to relevant regulatory authorities. This process is estimated to be concluded during 2015. For the ISI project the work will be focused on finalizing applications to secure a broad patent platform before year end 2015.

Active Biotech's planned organizational adjustment leads to substantially reduced operating costs. The operating costs are expected to decrease to approximately SEK 50 Million per year, from 2016.

For further information, please contact:
Tomas Leanderson, President & CEO
Tel +46 46 19 20 95

Hans Kolam, CFO
Tel +46 46 19 20 44

Active Biotech AB (publ) (Nasdaq Stockholm: ACTI) is a biotechnology company with focus on neurodegenerative/inflammatory diseases and cancer. Laquinimod, an orally administered small molecule with unique immunomodulatory properties, is in pivotal phase III development for the treatment of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis. Also, laquinimod is in phase II development for the treatment of primary progressive multiple sclerosis and Huntington's disease. Please visit www.activebiotech.com for more information.

Active Biotech AB (Corp. Reg. No. 556223-9227)
Box 724, SE-220 07 Lund
Tel: +46 46 19 20 00
Fax: +46 46 19 11 00

Active Biotech is required under the Financial Instruments Trading Act to make the information in this press release public. The information was submitted for publication at 10:00 a.m. CET on June 1, 2015.