XTL Biopharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly & Company Enter Agreement To Evaluate Therapeutics For Hepatitis C - Testing Underway Utilizing Breakthrough Technique For

announced today an agreement to test an Eli Lilly & Company drug candidate in XTL's proprietary animal model for hepatitis C. The parties anticipate that XTL's technique could significantly accelerate the development and commercialization of drugs to treat hepatitis C, a serious infectious disease that afflicts over 170 million people worldwide. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The companies will utilize XTL's Trimera(XTL) system; a breakthrough patented method, which enables a mouse to carry human liver fragments infected with hepatitis C virus. Normally, animals are not susceptible to hepatitis C infection, a fact that has severely limited the ability to test promising new drugs. The novel Trimera(XTL) system provides a test model for the evaluation of compounds that may have clinical utility for the treatment of hepatitis C infection. XTL's system offers the potential to biologically validate the effectiveness of drug candidates before embarking on costly human clinical studies. It is anticipated that the availability of a small animal model could significantly reduce the time and money needed to develop novel drugs to treat hepatitis C. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is as a major cause of chronic hepatitis in the United States and is a leading cause for liver transplantation. An estimated 4 million individuals are infected with HCV in the United States, and the World Health Organization estimates that 170 million people are infected worldwide. Approximately 85% of HCV infected persons will develop chronic hepatitis, of which 20% will progress to liver cirrhosis. The number of deaths attributable to hepatitis C is expected to triple in the next 10 to 20 years. In addition to this pioneering work in hepatitis C, XTL is also initiating a clinical trial in hepatitis B patients utilizing a combination of two fully human anti-HBV monoclonal antibodies developed utilizing the Trimera(XTL) technology. XTL is a biopharmaceutical company developing fully human monoclonal antibody-based therapeutics with a primary focus on infectious diseases. The Company applies its proprietary drug discovery and development "engine," the Trimera(XTL) system, to produce high affinity, fully human antibodies to a broad range of disease targets including hepatitis B (HBV) and hepatitis C (HCV). In addition, XTL has unique, high-value animal models of human diseases including models for testing HBV and HCV therapeutic drugs. For more information about XTL, visit the Company's website at http://www.xtlbio.com. A backgrounder on the Trimera(XTL) System is available upon request. ots Original Text Service: XTL Biopharmaceuticals Ltd. Internet: http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: Martin Becker, Ph.D., President and CEO, 972-8-940-5134, becker@xtlbio.com, or Glenn Kazo, Vice President, Business Development, 603-878-9857, gfkazo@aol.com, both of of XTL Biopharmaceuticals, Ltd., or Douglas MacDougall or Kari Lampka of Feinstein Kean Partners Inc., 617-577-8110 Web site: http://www.fkpi.com Web site: http://www.xtlbio.com Subscribers please note that material bearing the slug "PROTEXT" is not part of CTK's news service and is not to be published under the "CTK" slug. Protext is a commercial service providing distribution of press releases from clients, who are identified in the text of Protext reports and who bear full responsibility for their contents. PROTEXT