Anadys Announces Drug Discovery Collaboration With Roche; Roche Accesses Anadys' Drug Discovery Capabilities and Makes an Equity Investment in Anadys.

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SAN DIEGO--(BW HealthWire)--Aug. 8, 2002

Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ("Anadys") announced today that it has entered into a Collaboration Agreement with Roche to advance a key oncology program at Roche. This program will leverage the considerable expertise that Anadys has developed in structure assisted drug design and high output medicinal chemistry.

Under the terms of the agreement, Anadys will deploy its discovery capabilities to advance lead compounds identified by Roche against an important oncology target. Anadys will engage its high-output medicinal chemistry platform that includes structure assisted drug design, cheminformatics, parallel synthesis and purification, and rapid retesting of compounds. Specific financial terms were not disclosed but include Roche making an upfront equity investment in Anadys, as well as Roche providing R&D funding, and milestone and royalty payments to Anadys.

"We are excited that Roche has chosen Anadys to provide discovery capabilities for this important oncology program," said Kleanthis G. Xanthopoulos, Ph.D., President and CEO of Anadys. "At Anadys, we have always believed that success in the pharmaceutical business would require integrating outstanding capabilities in discovery biology and chemistry. Over the last two years we have worked very hard to build these capabilities. This collaboration is solid proof that we have been successful in our endeavors."

"We are pleased to work with Anadys who will bring strong capabilities in high output medicinal chemistry to complement our own work on this key oncology project," said Lee Babiss, Vice President of Preclinical Research and Development of Roche Nutley. "We feel that Anadys has assembled a strong team and look forward to working with them to advance this program as quickly as possible."

"This collaboration serves as strong validation of our discovery capabilities," said Michael Kamdar, Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy of Anadys. "The collaboration with Roche also allows Anadys to enter into the therapeutic area of oncology in partnership with a recognized global leader in oncology. We look forward to building a long term relationship with Roche."

About Anadys

Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (www.anadyspharma.com) discovers and develops novel small molecule therapeutics to combat bacterial and viral infections. The Company unites world-class experts and discovery technologies in biology and chemistry from target identification through clinical trials. The Company has the ability to pursue traditional protein targets as well as underexploited targets including RNA and proteins of unknown function. Anadys intends to harness its powerful research and development engine to propel a continual pipeline of novel drug candidates into the clinic on its own and through corporate partnerships.