Milan and Paris, May 10, 2005 -- NiKem Research Srl and Hybrigenics SA announced today that they have expanded and extended a Research Service Agreement already in place between the two companies. Under the terms of the agreement, NiKem will continue using its medicinal chemistry platform and expertise to optimize inhibitors of Ubiquitin Specific Proteases (USP) as new therapeutic agents against cancer. This family of proteases has been the focus of thorough target identification and validation studies by Hybrigenics in the field of Oncology.

By pursuing this business opportunity with Hybrigenics, NiKem Research further increases its European clients' portfolio by focusing on biotech companies that have a great potential for growing over the next few years.
Carlo Farina, CEO of NiKem Research, said, "The collaboration with Hybrigenics provides further industrial validation to our company in a high unmet medical need area where novel mechanisms of action might really make the difference in terms of efficacy and safety."

Giuseppe Giardina, COO of NiKem, said, "We are excited to expand our knowledge in the Proteases area and we are very pleased that after an initial successful collaboration, Hybrigenics has decided to fully trust NiKem to boost properly its lead optimization phase."

Remi Delansorne, Vice President R&D of Hybrigenics commented, "After having managed to move forward our top priority USP project through assay development and screening of chemical libraries internally, we were fortunate to choose NiKem to initiate our hit to lead efforts, because the collaboration quickly delivered promising synthetic hit improvements. Now, we are delighted with this renewed and broadened agreement which will speed up Hybrigenics' progress towards a lead USP inhibitor".

About NiKem Research
Based on decades of drug discovery experience and now operating at biotech speed, NiKem Research offers a full range of medicinal and combinatorial chemistry services and partnering opportunities to the pharmaceutical industry. In addition to its expertise in hit validation and lead optimization, NiKem Research provides its clients with the synthesis of specifically-designed custom arrays, Explora ADMET services, biochemical screening and in vivo DMPK. NiKem Research may operate either as a classical fee-for-service partner, or as a co-developer in risk-sharing projects with biology-oriented biotechs having innovative early drug discovery opportunities.

NiKem Research is also progressing a pipeline of IP protected discovery programs in CNS and oncology. Two of these projects have already generated preclinical development candidates which are expected to enter Phase I clinical development in 2006.

For further information visit www.nikemresearch.com

About Hybrigenics
Hybrigenics ( www.hybrigenics.com ) is an established biotechnology company in the field of functional proteomics. Hybrigenics analyzes specific biological complexes and networks of interacting proteins ("pathways"), from which it selects novel targets that are used to screen libraries of small molecules. The Company follows this approach for a few selected and focused internal drug discovery programs, primarily in oncology. Hybrigenics core activities include target identification and validation, molecular and cell biology, fluorescent-based assay development and screening, and lead compound profiling.
For target research purposes, Hybrigenics has developed and industrialized a high-performance and robust yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) platform, which is also successfully used by the industry and the academic world on a simple fee-for-service basis. This service activity has recently received worldwide ISO 9001-2000 certification. The Y2H platform uses proprietary high-throughput screening procedures to identify interacting proteins, reconstitute functional pathways and build extensive Protein Interaction Maps (PIM) using state of the art bioinformatic expertise.

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