VILLA GUARDIA (COMO), Italy, April 2, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gentium S.p.A. (Nasdaq:GENT) (the "Company") today announced that the Company's lead product, Defibrotide, was the subject of a symposium, "How can defibrotide tackle two critical early complications of HSCT? Current and future concepts for prevention and treatment of GvHD and VOD," on April 1, 2012 at the 38th Annual Meeting of the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation in Geneva, Switzerland.
The symposium was chaired by Dr. Enric Carreras (Barcelona, Spain) and Dr. Dietger Niederweiser (Leipzig, Germany) and was well-attended by the physician and research communities.
Key opinion leaders presented and discussed:
- "Pathophysiology, incidence and outcome of VOD after HSCT: what have we learned in 30 years?" by Dr. Enric Carreras;
- "Therapy for established VOD: an update on defibrotide treatment studies" by Dr. Paul Richardson (Boston, USA);
- "Acute GvHD: what are the causes and consequences at a cellular level?" by Dr. Ernst Holler (Regensburg, Germany); and
- "Prevention of VOD and GvHD: what did we learn from the VOD-defibrotide prevention trial?" by Dr. Selim Corbacioglu (Regensburg, Germany)
About Gentium
Gentium S.p.A., located in Como, Italy, is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and manufacture of drugs to treat and prevent a variety of diseases and conditions, including vascular diseases related to cancer and cancer treatments. Defibrotide, the Company's lead product candidate, is an investigational drug that has been granted Orphan Drug status by the U.S. FDA and Orphan Medicinal Product Designation by the European Commission both to treat and to prevent VOD and Fast Track Designation by the U.S. FDA to treat VOD.
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