Arris To Collaborate With Pharmacia & Upjohn In New Combinatorial Chemistry Program.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 12, 1996--Arris Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ:ARRS) announced today that it will collaborate with Pharmacia & Upjohn (NYSE:PNU) to significantly expand Arris' combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening capabilities and to use combinatorial chemistry to create a probe library consisting of 250,000 small molecule synthetic organic compounds for the partners' co-exclusive use. The agreement calls for Arris to share with Pharmacia & Upjohn for use in its worldwide research programs not only libraries of newly synthesized compounds but also the technologies used for synthesis and screening. The agreement includes license fees and milestone payments; other financial terms were not disclosed.

Combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening are increasingly being used throughout the pharmaceutical industry to accelerate the drug discovery process. These technologies enable more rapid synthesis and testing of compounds and result in faster identification of chemical structures of interest for further modification.

According to John Walker, Arris president and chief executive officer, "This agreement recognizes the progress made in the molecular diversity collaboration we began with Pharmacia prior to its merger with Upjohn. In that agreement, announced in January 1995, Arris agreed to transfer to Pharmacia primarily new high throughput screening and robotics capabilities developed at Arris. In the new agreement, Arris will transfer to Pharmacia & Upjohn significant combinatorial chemistry technology while preserving for itself the use of that technology in its own programs. The agreement provides funding for expanding Arris' combinatorial chemistry/high throughput screening facility and for generating a broad library of compounds that will be used as part of the screening programs conducted independently by Arris and by Pharmacia & Upjohn."

"The fundamental importance of the discovery process in pharmaceutical research and the promise of combinatorial chemistry and HTS in accelerating this process have led us to expand our collaboration with Arris. The 250,000 compound library and the technologies for synthesis and screening will be tremendous assets and will add significant value to our global discovery research programs," said Goran Ando, M.D., executive vice president, worldwide science and technology, Pharmacia & Upjohn.

Arris Pharmaceutical uses an integrated drug discovery approach combining structure-based drug design, combinatorial chemistry and its proprietary Delta Technology to discover and develop small molecule therapeutics for existing markets where available therapies have significant limitations. Arris' product development programs include: protease-based discovery programs targeting the inhibition of enzymes implicated in inflammatory and certain other diseases such as asthma, blood clotting disorders, arthritis, osteoporosis, cancer and various infectious diseases; and receptor-based discovery programs, including those designed to discover small molecule drugs that mimic therapeutically important proteins, such as EPO, hGH, G-CSF and TPO, and research programs to develop drugs that modulate the activity of receptors involved in diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

CONTACT: Arris Pharmaceutical Corporation

Daniel H. Petree or Shari Annes, 415/829-1000

http://www.arris.com