Anadys Announces Key Executive Additions; Appointments Strengthen the Management Team in Development, Finance and Legal.

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

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SAN DIEGO--(BW HealthWire)--Jan. 28, 2002

Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ("Anadys") announced today the appointments of David W. Kramer to the position of Chief Financial Officer, Elizabeth E. Reed, Esq., to the position of Director of Legal Affairs, Brad Kerr, Ph.D. to the position of Senior Director of Clinical Affairs, and Wei Liaw, Ph.D. to the position of Associate Director of Pharmaceutical Development. The addition of these individuals furthers Anadys' ability to exploit strategic financial opportunities and to advance its key compounds through development.

Mr. Kramer brings to Anadys over twenty years of strategic financial experience in both the biotechnology and electronics fields. From 1990 to 2001, Mr. Kramer was the Vice President, Finance & Chief Financial Officer at Gen-Probe Inc., a San Diego developer, manufacturer and marketer of biotechnical diagnostic products. Mr. Kramer received a BA, cum laude from Yale University and an MBA in Finance from the Harvard Graduate School of Business.

Ms. Reed joins Anadys with responsibility for all legal and intellectual property related matters. Prior to joining Anadys, Ms. Reed was an attorney with the law firms Cooley Godward LLP and Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP. Ms. Reed received a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley and her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School.

"We are delighted to welcome David and Elizabeth to Anadys," said Kleanthis G. Xanthopoulos, Ph.D., President and CEO of Anadys. "David brings his considerable financial and operational expertise to Anadys. David's experience will serve us well as we consider numerous future financial opportunities. We will also benefit from the wealth of experience that Elizabeth had representing a variety of biotechnology and high-technology companies during her tenure at Cooley Godward and Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison."

Dr. Kerr joins Anadys with responsibility for clinical affairs. Dr. Kerr brings thirteen years of experience in various aspects of clinical research and development. Dr. Kerr was a clinical pharmacologist at Glaxo and Glaxo Wellcome for five years and then led the Clinical Pharmacology group at Agouron Pharmaceuticals for six years. Most recently, Dr. Kerr was Senior Director in Clinical Research for Pfizer Global Research and Development (PGRD) in La Jolla, where he was responsible for clinical research activities supporting multiple programs from Phase I through Phase III. Dr. Kerr received his B.S. in Pharmacy from Auburn University and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Washington.

Dr. Liaw joined Anadys with responsibility for pharmaceutical development. Dr. Liaw brings seventeen years of experience in the field, most recently as Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development at Medinox. Prior to joining Medinox, Dr. Liaw held positions of increasing responsibility in pharmaceutics and formulation at Syntex Research, Telios Pharmaceuticals, and DepoTech Corporation. Dr. Liaw received his Ph.D. from the Department of Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy, at the University of Minnesota.

"The addition of Brad and Wei will have a substantial and immediate impact on the speed of development of Anadys' drug candidates, and materially enhances our capability in key areas of the development process," said Dr. Devron Averett, Senior Vice President for Drug Development.

About Anadys Pharmaceuticals

Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ("Anadys" or the "Company") is a new generation drug discovery company committed to applying an integrated approach that combines biology and chemistry to develop new small molecule therapeutics. The Company's initial therapeutic focus is in anti-infectives. Anadys has developed and implemented proprietary technologies (GATE(TM)) to identify novel antibacterial targets. The Company augments this set of targets with additional antibacterial and antiviral targets using its dominant expertise in Riboproteomics(TM), a phrase coined by the Company to describe the systematic study of RNA-related targets. RNA and RNA-protein complexes have been validated as targets for the treatment of infectious diseases with approved drugs such as neomycin, Zyvox(R), and Zithromax(R). The Company can screen targets for small molecule effectors using a proprietary ultra high-throughput affinity-based method for protein targets (ATLAS(TM)) and a proprietary method for RNA targets (SCAN(TM)). Compounds identified in screening are then advanced to drug development candidates using the Company's proprietary cheminformatics tools (including PROTOS(TM)) combined with a world-class high-output medicinal chemistry platform. Anadys intends to harness this integrated suite of technologies to propel a strong and continual pipeline of drug candidates into the clinic.

For more information, please visit www.anadyspharma.com.