News & Events

- A$7.4 Million Rights Issue Completed -
- Top-Up Facility Scaled-Back Because of Excess Shareholder Demand -
- Further A$1 Million Placement, Combined With A$10 Million Placement in April 2009 Brings
Total Capital Raise to A$18.4 Million -

ChemGenex Pharmaceuticals (ASX: CXS, NASDAQ: CXSP) announced today the completion of its 1 for 14 nonrenounceable rights issue at A$0.43 per share, raising the maximum A$7.4 million. The rights issue was fully subscribed with demand being greater than the 17,122,453 shares available under the rights issue. The company has completed an A$1 million placement (2,325,580 shares at A$0.43 per share) to a small number of institutional investors to partially satisfy the strong demand and reduce the amount of scale-back required for the rights issue top-up facility.

Given the excess demand for new shares under the rights issue, a scale-back of requests for additional shares under the top-up facility will be implemented. Investors are advised that they may not receive the full amount of additional shares applied for under the top-up facility. Holding statements are expected to be dispatched to shareholders on Friday 29 May 2009, which will confirm the number of shares allotted to each applicant. Investors who participated in the top-up facility and want to trade their shares prior to receiving their holding statement should confirm their allocation before doing so.

The A$18.4 million raised through the rights issue and the two placements will be used primarily to:

• complete clinical development and regulatory filings in the US and Europe for omacetaxine in in CML patients who have failed imatinib and who have the T315I mutation
• further progress discussions with pharmaceutical companies to secure marketing anddistribution partners for omacetaxine outside of the US
• prepare for the commercial launch of omacetaxine in the US

The funds raised are intended to fund the company through to the launch of its lead product, omacetaxine, in the US (targeted for first quarter 2010).

The rights issue was underwritten by ABN AMRO Morgans Corporate Limited.

Dr Greg Collier, Ph.D., Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ChemGenex said, "We are delighted that there has been such a strong interest in this rights issue, and welcome several new institutional investors to the company. Having completed a very successful capital raising, we now look forward to clinical and pre-clinical data on omacetaxine being presented at oral sessions of two major international conferences in the coming weeks, and the completion of the first US and European regulatory submissions for omacetaxine in mid-year."