Moleculin Announces Grant-Funded Collaboration to Expand Understanding of New Discovery

HOUSTON, TX--(Marketwired - March 20, 2018) - Moleculin Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ: MBRX) ("Moleculin" or the "Company"), a clinical stage pharmaceutical company focused on the development of oncology drug candidates, some of which are based on license agreements with The University of Texas System on behalf of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, today announced it has entered into a collaboration with a team of scientists in Poland who have received a $300,000 research grant to expand the understanding of how Moleculin's leading STAT3 inhibitor WP1066 and the Company's newly discovered drug candidate, WP1732, create a blockade of transcription factor STAT3 leading to tumor cell death and immune-stimulating effects.

"In parallel with our current clinical trial of WP1066 and our IND-enabling work on WP1732, we also want to increase our understanding of the molecular details of the mechanism by which these drug candidates have a demonstrated ability in preclinical testing to simultaneously attack tumors directly while also stimulating the immune system to fight cancer," commented Walter Klemp, Chairman and CEO of Moleculin. "The cutting-edge nature of our newly discovery drug candidates make it possible to attract non-dilutive research grant funding like this."

Moleculin has entered into a collaborative research agreement with Drs. Krzysztof Wozniak and Marcin Ziemniak of the University of Warsaw to explore the Company's STAT3 inhibitors using x-ray crystallography and other analytical methods to provide a more detailed understanding of how these compounds are able to affect what had previously been considered "undruggable" targets.

"Our grant funding has now enabled us to employ some of the best scientific methods available to research this important new discovery," added Prof. Wozniak. "We believe this class of molecules may represent one of the first known inhibitors that are able to potently affect the stability of key oncogenic transcriptional factors via a specific unique molecular process."

Dr. Ziemniak concluded, "Helping to explain how these remarkable compounds work may also additionally support their eventual approval as successful cancer drugs, which makes our basic research even that much more important."

About Moleculin Biotech, Inc.

Moleculin Biotech, Inc. is a clinical stage pharmaceutical company focused on the development of oncology drug candidates, some of which are based on discoveries made at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Our clinical stage drugs are Annamycin, an anthracycline designed to avoid multidrug resistance mechanisms with little to no cardiotoxicity being studied for the treatment of relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia, more commonly referred to as AML, and WP1066, an immuno-stimulating STAT3 inhibitor targeting brain tumors, pancreatic cancer and AML. We are also engaged in preclinical development of additional drug candidates, including additional STAT3 inhibitors and compounds targeting the metabolism of tumors.