Albany Molecular Research, Inc. Announces Drug Discovery Research Collaboration with Alcon.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Albany Molecular Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMRI) today announced that it has entered into a two-year research collaboration with Alcon Research, Ltd. to discover and develop ophthalmic pharmaceuticals.

Under the terms of the agreement, AMRI will screen samples from its natural product collections, with the goal of identifying and developing lead compounds with desired biological activity against ophthalmic-related biological targets. Additional AMRI compound collections may also be screened under the agreement. AMRI will also provide custom chemical synthesis services. The contract includes fee-for-service provisions and library access fees, as well as opportunities for AMRI to receive milestone payments based on the achievement of certain development and regulatory benchmarks. In addition, AMRI would receive royalty payments on net sales of commercial products that result from the collaboration. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"We are looking forward to the opportunity to work with Alcon, the world's leading ophthalmic company, to help it discover and develop novel therapeutic compounds for eye diseases," said AMRI Chairman, President and CEO Thomas E. D'Ambra, Ph.D. "This research collaboration highlights the potential of AMRI's comprehensive drug discovery and development services, including our diverse lead-finding compound collections, assay development technologies, high throughput screening resources and chemical synthesis expertise. We are particularly excited about the opportunity to screen our purified natural products collections in this drug discovery collaboration. The compounds made by nature are often very different from what scientists make in the lab and may yield novel leads to a family of targets with high therapeutic potential and promise."

Over the last several years, AMRI has built one of the world's largest and most diverse collections of natural products-based lead-seeking collections and is a world leader in natural products drug discovery. AMRI's diverse collections include over 400,000 purified or partially purified fractions obtained from natural product sources (including terrestrial and marine microorganisms, as well as plant tissues) and synthetic small molecules. Integrated with follow-on technologies in high speed purification, separation and structure elucidation, AMRI's natural products discovery platform makes identification of biologically active hits from these collections fast, efficient and reliable and make natural products, a proven source of drugs on the market, once again a viable and modern platform for new drug discovery.

Albany Molecular Research, Inc. is a leading research, drug discovery, development and manufacturing company built on a chemistry platform of comprehensive and integrated technologies, resources and capabilities. The company conducts research and development with many leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and for its own internal discovery programs, and provides cGMP manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients through its wholly owned subsidiary, Organichem Corporation. For more information, please visit www.albmolecular.com.

Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may be identified by forward-looking words such as "may," "could," "should," "would," "will," "intend," "expect," "anticipate," "believe" and "continue" or similar words. Readers should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. The company's actual results may differ materially from such forward-looking statements as a result of numerous factors, some of which the company may not be able to predict and may not be within the company's control. Factors that could cause such differences include, but are not limited to (a) the company's ability to attract and retain experienced scientists, (b) trends in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies outsourcing chemical research and development, (c) the company's ability to take advantage of proprietary technology and expand the scientific tools available to it, (d) the company's ability to expand and integrate its drug discovery and development technologies, (e) the company's performance under the contract, (f) Alcon's continuous utilization of the company's services at levels set forth in the contract and (g) Alcon's continued pursuit of programs under which the company provides services as well as those factors discussed in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2003 as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 15, 2004, as amended by the Form 10-K/A filed on November 8, 2004, and the company's other SEC filings. The company does not undertake any duty to and does not intend to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release after the date of this press release.