Bristol, UK, 19 April 2006, Lectus Therapeutics Ltd (“Lectus”), a drug discovery and development company focusing on next-generation ion channel modulators, today announced that it has acquired the assets of NeuroServe Ltd, an electrophysiology company which tests compounds on ion channels for pharmaceutical and biotech clients.  The assets purchased by Lectus include intellectual property, equipment and expertise. Lectus has also taken over the lease on the premises located at Babraham in Cambridgeshire, placing the company at the heart of the UK’s leading biotechnology cluster. This acquisition forms an important part of Lectus’s strategy.

Lectus had been outsourcing its electrophysiological requirements to NeuroServe since 2003.  Having raised £8.2m in a Series A round earlier this year Lectus is now expanding its sphere of operations. By acquiring the assets of NeuroServe, Lectus has brought electrophysiology in house and gained access to technology and expertise which it will use to advance its internal programmes.

Lectus’s mission is to discover and develop first- and best- in class next-generation ion channel drugs to treat pain, urinary incontinence and angina. The equipment and methodology now available to Lectus will be used to evaluate compounds generated through exploitation of its proprietary proteomics research engine, LEPTICS^®.

Dr Roland Kozlowski, CEO of Lectus, commented: “We are very pleased with this asset purchase. The skill set acquired enables us to significantly build complementary expertise within the organisation. Significantly by bringing electrophysiological compound evaluation into Lectus it also removes a bottleneck within our drug discovery process.”

Dr Phillip Boden, Managing Director of NeuroServe (who becomes Director of Biology at Lectus) commented “NeuroServe and Lectus have worked closely together for two years. This deal is a natural progression for NeuroServe and its staff who are keen to shift from service provision and apply their unique skills exclusively to Lectus’s drug discovery programmes. In particular NeuroServe’s specialist multi-electrode array will provide a valuable tool for evaluating tissue selectivity of Lectus’s next-generation ion channel therapeutics”

For further information please contact:

Lectus Therapeutics Limited                                       Tel: +44 (0)117 928 8973

Roland Kozlowski, CEO                                              

Northbank Communications                                        Tel: +44 (0) 20 7886 8150

Emma Palmer

Rowan Minnion 

NOTES TO EDITORS  

About Lectus Therapeutics and LEPTICS^®

Lectus Therapeutics is an emerging UK-based drug-discovery and development company, incorporated in December 2002, specialising in the discovery and development of novel drugs for diseases associated with pain management, urinary incontinence and angina. Lectus’ vision is to become a world leader in developing next-generation ion channel therapeutics.  Lectus exploits the power of its proprietary functional proteomics platform, LEPTICS^® (Leveraged Enabling Proteomics Technology for Ion Channel Screening), and builds on its knowledge of ion channels, to develop novel ion channel modulators that have the potential to offer important clinical and economic advantages over existing therapies. 

Ion channels are proteins that control the flow of ions, such as sodium, calcium and potassium, into and out of mammalian cells.  They are integral to muscle movement, nerve impulse transmission and cardiovascular function.  Historically, drugs targeting ion channels have been very successful and still generate well in excess of $6 billion in global sales per annum. In recent years however, efforts at identifying novel ion channel therapeutics have focussed on targeting the pore forming domains of ion channels and despite billions of dollars spent in R&D, this approach has not yielded further significant clinical success. This is believed to be mainly because of the side effects associated with the lack of specificity of this approach.  Lectus’s next-generation ion channel therapeutics, selectively targeting ion channel accessory proteins, are anticipated to have a significantly enhanced safety profile with resultant therapeutic and economic benefits.   

For further information go to www.lectustherapeutics.com   

About NeuroServe Limited

NeuroServe Ltd., formed in March 2000, was set up to provide high quality electrophysiology to companies primarily interested in identifying compounds for treatment of pain and neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders.  The technology which the company utilised was also applicable to the more generalised study of ion channels and the effects of accessory proteins in many tissue types.  The research carried out by Neuroserve involved using sophisticated methods, such as multielectrode array technology directly applicable to studying synchronisation of electrical activity in tissues. The company was also developing models for un-met therapeutic areas, such as tinnitus and is a member of the European Tinnitus Consortium.