APTANOMICS COMPLETES FUNDING TO DEVELOP NEW DRUG DISCOVERY PLATFORMS BASED ON PEPTIDE APTAMERS

Lyon, France, 28 October 2002 Aptanomics announced today the completion of a private offering of Euro 7 million. The funds will be used to finance the implementation of peptide aptamer technology platforms, drug development programs and initial preclinical studies.

The private offering was subscribed by four major venture capital funds: CDC Innovation (Paris), Bioam (Lyon & Paris), Ventech (Paris) and AGF Private Equity (Paris). Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, MA) was a founder shareholder. Other organizations lending their support to the setting up of the Company included the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Le Grand Lyon and the CNRS with grants from CREALYS (West Rhône-Alpes Incubator), the Rhône-Alpes Region, the French Ministry of Research and ANVAR Rhône-Alpes.

Aptanomics is a new company formed to develop drug discovery platforms based on the scientific work carried out by Roger Brent's world leading team at Massachusetts General Hospital and Pierre Colas (INSERM) and Brian B. Rudkin in the CNRS Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon, France. Massachusetts General Hospital and Wyeth (NYSE:WYE) have granted exclusive worldwide commercial licenses to Aptanomics covering the use of the peptide aptamers.

Pierre Colas, Scientific Director, commented: "Aptanomics is the industrial continuation of an extraordinary scientific adventure initiated ten years ago by Roger Brent, with whom I had the privilege to work on the early development of peptide aptamers. This technology has now achieved enough potential and robustness to pave the way to a highly successful biotech endeavor. The outstanding scientific boldness and creativity of Roger Brent made Aptanomics possible and he will remain a constant source of inspiration to us in his role as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board."

Thierry Laugel of CDC Innovation said: "We believe that Aptanomics' pioneering technology will help design small molecules capable of selectively inhibiting protein-protein interactions, ultimately leading to new pharmaceuticals. A first research collaboration with a major pharmaceutical company already demonstrates the interest of pharmaceutical companies in this very original know-how."

Aptanomics S.A. is a drug discovery company based on peptide aptamer technologies. Peptide aptamers are new combinatorial biology reagents that bind with high specificity to intracellular target proteins and inhibit their function. This enables the Company to validate novel therapeutic targets and to develop new therapeutic molecules against these targets. The Company is using the technology to develop in-house therapeutic programs and to pursue R&D alliances and contract research with pharmaceutical partners.

The Company has its headquarters and research facilities in Lyon, France.

Peptide aptamers
Peptide aptamers are man-made recognition molecules whose design was inspired from the structure of antibodies. Like antibodies and T-cell receptors, they consist of a variable peptide loop attached at both ends to a protein scaffold. This double structural constraint greatly increases the binding affinity of the peptide aptamer to levels comparable to an antibody's (nanomolar or better).

Peptide aptamers can be selected from an initial pool of several million for their ability to bind a target protein. Typically, peptide aptamers inhibit biological functions by disrupting specific protein interactions.

A third key feature of the technology is that the selection occurs in vivo, which carries significant advantages above other selection methods performed in vitro. This means that Aptanomics can screen against intracellular targets that are more likely to assume their native 3D conformation as they are displayed in an intracellular environment. Also, the selected molecules will not be toxic and will retain their binding capacity when expressed in relevant cellular or animal models.

Of vital importance in the development of new drugs, peptide aptamers show an exquisite specificity for their target protein, being able to discriminate between closely related proteins or even between different allelic forms of a given protein.

Starting from the known structure of the rigid protein platform, the structure of the peptide aptamer both free and bound to its target can be determined. Computer-assisted modeling of the target-aptamer complex will guide the design of small molecules and focused chemical libraries that will be screened to find small molecule protein-protein interaction inhibitors.

CDC Innovation
CDC IXIS Innovation is a venture capital fund affiliated to CDC IXIS Private Equity, an equity investment organization with 2.4 billion Euros under management. CDC IXIS Innovation specializes in biotechnology and information technology start-ups and early stage companies. Contact: Thierry Laugel, +33-1-40 64 23 63, t.laugel@cdcinnov.com 

BioAm
With a total commitment of ¤44 million, Bioam is a venture capital investment fund dedicated to the early-stage financing of biotech companies. Bioam's mission is to finance biotech start-ups with high growth potential based on the significant strength of French life science research in both the public and private sectors in order to provide significant returns to its limited partners. Bioam combines 3 specificities: 1) it is specialized in seed and very early-stage financing, 2) its sole focus is Biotechnology, 3) its founding investors include the French Government's CNRS, INRA and INSERM National Research Councils.

Ventech
Ventech is a venture fund based in Paris investing in communications, information technology and life sciences companies. Founded in 1998, Ventech currently manages more than Euro 200 million. The Ventech Life Science Team combines extensive experience in Research and Development with industrial experience in both start-up and established companies. For more information about Ventech, go to http://www.ventech.fr .

AGF Private Equity
AGF Private Equity is specialized in non-listed investments. The Company manages an investment portfolio worth over EUR 600 million for institutional and private investors, through two activities: funds of funds and venture capital investments. As part of this VC activity, AGF Private Equity invests in technology-oriented companies, in the software, telecommunications and biotechnology industries through four FCPI venture funds (AGF Innovation, AGF Innovation 2, AGF Innovation 3, AGF Innovation 4). Since 1999, the Company has invested in thirty High Tech companies including in six Biotech start-ups. Website: www.agfprivatequity.com 

Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital, established in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $300 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, cutaneous biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine. In 1994, the MGH joined with Brigham and Women's Hospital to form Partners HealthCare System, an integrated health care delivery system comprising the two academic medical centers, specialty and community hospitals, a network of physician groups and nonacute and home health services.


For further information:
Keren Perrott, Andrew Lloyd & Associates
+44 1273 675100

keren@ala.com 

John B. Hawken, Aptanomics

JBHawken@compuserve.com 

-- 
Keren Perrott

ANDREW LLOYD & ASSOCIATES

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