atugen and Sankyo Sign Multi-Year Contract Research Agreement

Berlin , Germany , May 17, 2004 – atugen AG announced today that it has signed a multi-year contract research agreement with Sankyo Co. Ltd, one of Japan ’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Both companies have already successfully collaborated on a number of proprietary molecular targets that Sankyo has discovered in different disease areas. atugen will now use its gene silencing technologies, including siRNA, GeneBlocs^®, delivery reagents and functional assays to validate an undisclosed number of Sankyo targets.

No financial details of the research agreement are being disclosed.

“We are delighted to be starting on this major research project with Sankyo. We have already worked with the company on a pilot study so our two research teams have established a working routine,” said Dr. Klaus Giese, atugen´s Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Research. “Our knowledge and experience in target validation and disease pathways will save considerable time for Sankyo by validating targets that will lead to the most viable drugs.”

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atugen AG, (www.atugen.com) the Gene Silencing Company, is a biopharmaceutical company with core competence in functional gene silencing.  The company is based in Berlin , Germany and currently has about 40 employees.  atugen pursues a dual business strategy comprising in-house drug development programs and a contract research business. atugen’s therapeutic siRNA programs currently focus on in vivo applications in oncology, liver and skin diseases, exploiting its oligonucleotide delivery technologies and chemically-stabilized, proprietary siRNA structures.  The contract research business offers target validation and drug discovery to biopharma through research alliances and fee-for-service.

GeneBloc® and SignaLink™ are trademarks of atugen AG.

Sankyo Co., Ltd. of Tokyo , is one of Japan 's largest pharmaceutical companies with annual worldwide sales of $5 billion. Sankyo has a long history of discovering new classes of drugs, including the statin class of lipid lowering drugs with its discovery of the first statin, mevastatin (compactin, ML236B). Sankyo also discovered, co-developed and manufactures pravastatin sodium. For further information about Sankyo, please consult http://www.sankyo.co.jp/english/