Cambridge, UK, 7^th January 2005 ….. Paradigm Therapeutics Ltd has today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Amedis Pharmaceuticals Ltd., a medicinal chemistry and drug discovery company. The transaction will create an enlarged Company with a unique mix of proprietary biology and chemistry capabilities. At merger, the Company will have cash reserves of £11m, approximately half of which is new investment secured from existing investors, Bio*1Capital, Merlin Biosciences and Avlar BioVentures, on the back of the deal. The Company will focus on identifying highly druggable targets and novel compounds for conditions in the areas of CNS, pain, endocrinology and metabolism. It has two programmes in late stage pre-clinical development as well as a number of earlier stage programmes and opportunities.

Commenting on the strategic synergies of the deal, Edwin Moses, current non-executive chairman of both companies and executive chairman of the combined company, commented, “The merger of Amedis and Paradigm generates a company with a highly complementary mix of medicinal chemistry, target validation and drug discovery capabilities. The combination of the two company’s programmes provides a commercially attractive portfolio of early stage and pre-clinical projects. This deal will accelerate Paradigm’s ability to progress promising therapeutic targets into novel drug candidates, establishing an extremely promising drug discovery company. The Company has a strong financial base as a result of prudent cash management to date and the injection of new monies. I am excited to be stepping up my role to Executive Chairman and look forward to working with the team to drive forward Paradigm’s growth and development.”

Paradigm Therapeutics has a portfolio of novel, therapeutically important patent protected drug targets identified using its proprietary in vivo functional genomics technology platform, with several drug discovery programmes ready for lead identification. The acquisition of Amedis Pharmaceuticals brings a range of medicinal chemistry expertise to the Company, including a proprietary silicon chemistry platform, as well as state-of-the-art medicinal chemistry expertise, together with a number of complementary research programmes, including the two pre-clinical programmes in CNS and endocrinology (cancer).

The Company’s business model will be to seek collaborative partners to take its pre-clinical leads through clinical development. It will also seek to out license targets that are not being exploited in house, as well as strategic alliances on its platform technologies in areas outside of its therapeutic focus.

The combined Company will have a strong senior management team, with a track record of taking compounds into the clinic. Post-merger, the current CEO of Paradigm Therapeutics, Mark Carlton, will become COO and John Montana, outgoing CEO of Amedis, will become the CSO. The Company will operate as Paradigm Therapeutics and consolidate to occupy one location on the Cambridge Science Park. Post-merger, the Company’s growth plans will see it grow by around 30% between the UK and the Singapore operations.

About Paradigm Therapeutics

Paradigm Therapeutics Ltd was founded in 1999 as a spin out from the Wellcome/CRC Institute of the University of Cambridge. Following the acquisition of Amedis Pharmaceuticals in January 2005, it will have raised a total of £24M in investment from Bio*1Capital, Avlar BioVentures, Merlin Biosciences, Lloyds Development Capital, TTP Ventures, the University of Cambridge, the Wellcome Trust and its founders. Its Board of Directors now comprises Edwin Moses, Executive Chairman, Mark Carlton, COO, John Montana, CSO, Barry Kenny, Commercial Director as well as three non-executive investor directors – Alan Munro (Bio*1Capital), Alan Goodman (Avlar) and Mark Clement (Merlin).

Paradigm has a unique drug discovery platform that combines a powerful proprietary in vivo functional genetics platform with Amedis’s medicinal chemistry capabilities, including its proprietary silicon chemistry platform.

The race to define the therapeutic utility of the thousands of uncharacterised human proteins is the new hallmark of modern drug discovery. Unlocking the precise physiological function of these proteins is a vital pre-requisite of rational drug development. Over 1,000 potential druggable targets have already been identified, of which more than a quarter of the most exciting are well advanced within biological validation programmes. Paradigm is focusing its efforts on therapeutic areas of high unmet medical need including CNS, pain, endocrinology and metabolism, and has two programmes in late stage pre-clinical development as well as a pipeline of proprietary targets with clearly defined therapeutic utility.

The Company is located in Cambridge Science Park, UK and has a wholly owned subsidiary, Paradigm Therapeutics Singapore PTE Ltd., based at the Biopolis in Singapore.

For more information about Paradigm, visit www.paradigm-therapeutics.co.uk.