Salisbury, UK, 1 March 2007: Syntaxin, Ltd, a biopharmaceutical company focusing on the discovery and development of novel drugs to control cell secretion, today announced the appointment of Philip Boyd as Chief Financial Officer. Philip joins Syntaxin from Evotec AG, where he was Senior Vice President, Finance and UK Finance Director.

A chartered management accountant, Philip has extensive financial and business experience from industry and consulting that is complemented by a scientific background. Prior to Evotec, Philip was Finance Director at Cambridge Discovery Chemistry, which was subsequently acquired by Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. Before this, he spent six years as a management consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, specialising in areas of operational and financial management across a wide range of industries, including pharmaceuticals. Philip received his BSc (Hons) degree in biotechnology and his PhD in genetics from University of Leeds, UK.

Patrick Doyle, CEO of Syntaxin commented: “I am delighted that Philip has joined our management team and look forward to working with him over the coming years. Philip brings a wealth of experience to the Company, and this will be invaluable to Syntaxin as we move forward and grow our business.”

Philip Boyd said of his new appointment: “I am delighted to join Syntaxin at this exciting time. The Company’s technology offers a great deal of promise in being able to offer new treatments for chronic conditions, and I am looking forward to playing my part in developing the business further.”

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Further enquiries:

Syntaxin Ltd
Patrick J Doyle, Chief Executive Officer
Tel +44 (0)1980 619801
patrick.doyle@syntaxin.com


Northbank Communications
Gemma Price, Katie Odgaard, Katja Stout
Tel +44 (0)20 7268 3002
syntaxin@northbankcommunications.com  

About Syntaxin Ltd
Syntaxin Ltd is a biopharmaceutical company that designs and develops novel drugs for the treatment of neurological, respiratory and metabolic diseases that act by controlling cell secretion. The Company’s proprietary technology platform enables bacterial proteins to be engineered by domain substitution, to produce drug candidates that inhibit the secretion of selected proteins from specified target cells involved in disease. These products can have therapeutic effects in a wide range of indications, including metabolic diseases (hormone secretion), respiratory diseases (mucus secretion), pain and other neurological diseases (neurotransmission), and inflammation (secretion of inflammatory mediators).

The Company was founded in November 2005 as a spin out from the UK Health Protection Agency, following a £6 million series A financing by Abingworth, a leading healthcare venture firm. Syntaxin has an extensive and developing portfolio of patents, which give the Company a strong proprietary position in the use of bacterial proteins to modulate aspects of cell biology in defined target cells in order to achieve a therapeutic outcome.

Syntaxin’s in-house programs are aimed at diseases with high unmet medical need, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, obesity and endocrine disorders. Therapeutics to tackle pain and other neurological disorders are being developed in partnership with Allergan.