Bothell’s Oncogenex merger closes, changes name to Achieve

BOTHELL — Achieve Life Sciences announced this week the closing of its merger with OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals.

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 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 d smoking cessation treatment that has been approved and marketed in Central and Eastern Europe for more than 15 years.

It is estimated that more than 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 U.S. next year.