Canterbury Institute Enters into Agreement with Hythiam to Initially Invest $2 Million Toward Opening 2 East Coast PROMETA Center Treatment Facilities.

LOS ANGELES -- Hythiam, Inc. (NASDAQ:HYTM):

--Initial Santa Monica PROMETA Center Achieves Profitability Within 6 Months

--Hythiam to Open Additonal San Francisco Location

Hythiam, Inc. (NASDAQ:HYTM), a healthcare services management company licensing the PROMETA(TM) physiological protocols designed to treat alcohol, methamphetamine and cocaine dependence, announced today that based upon early success with the inaugural PROMETA Center(TM) in Los Angeles, it entered into an agreement with Canterbury Institute, LLC for the purposes of allowing them to own and operate two PROMETA Centers. Canterbury Institute will deposit into escrow $2 million toward the opening of PROMETA Centers in two locations, one in Northern New Jersey and the other in Southern Florida. As part of the agreement, Hythiam will receive a 10% equity ownership in Canterbury Institute, LLC in addition to fees for services and technology licensing. Additionally, Hythiam disclosed that it will open another Company managed PROMETA Center in San Francisco.

"Our experience in managing the flagship PROMETA Center in Santa Monica, California has led us to believe that a dedicated facility affords us the ultimate leverage and potential for growth," said Terren Peizer, Hythiam's Chairman and CEO. "In just six months of operating the first PROMETA Center as a demonstration site and center of excellence, it has achieved profitability for us, while also becoming our highest volume licensee. This result should be exceeded when a full-time effort is devoted towards the execution of this strategy by a committed party, whose entire focus will be to build and operate these facilities. We believe that Canterbury Institute represents the ideal qualities we would look for in a partner -- intimate knowledge of the business of recovery combined with a willingness and desire to invest sufficient resources towards a shared vision of launching and marketing these centers, thus affording us greater leverage in dedicating our existing resources towards the larger, institutional opportunities for licensing PROMETA to governmental agencies, large employer groups, and third-party payers."

Peizer continued, "Our experience in Southern California has shown us that the smaller licensees benefit greatly from the visibility created for the PROMETA brand through the presence of a dedicated center of excellence. We will replicate this model in the Bay Area with the opening of our San Francisco location, and also build a strong network of licensees to complement each of Canterbury Institute's PROMETA Centers so that we can recreate and scale our existing model for each new market. Our company managed PROMETA center will benefit greatly from the involvement of Dr. David Smith who is one of the early pioneers of addiction treatment. As a founder of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic which treats approximately 14,000 patients per year, Dr. Smith has been a fixture in the addiction treatment community of the Bay Area for almost four decades."

Dr. Smith's current appointments include Medical Director of the California State Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, Medical Director of the California Collaborative Center for Substance Abuse Policy Research, Adjunct Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and Fellow and Past President of the American Society of Addiction Medicine and of the California Society of Addiction Medicine.

As part of its commitment, Canterbury Institute will allocate approximately $250,000 in annual marketing for each location when it opens a PROMETA Center. It will maintain exclusive rights to operate the PROMETA Center in the local market as long as it achieves designated thresholds for number of treatments and PROMETA Center openings within each territory. Canterbury Institute will guarantee a minimum license fee to Hythiam.

"We are gratified that Hythiam has placed confidence in us and our vision for launching PROMETA Centers," said Stephen Reiter, CEO of Canterbury Institute, LLC. "We have done extensive research on this market and are confident that medically based outpatient systems like PROMETA combined with outpatient behavioral counseling will be how the majority of individuals seek to get treated since prior treatment methodologies without a pharmacological component have yielded disappointing success rates. The paradigm of requiring an extensive in-patient stay must change in order to address the majority of those suffering from addiction who cannot afford to be away from work and family for weeks or months at a time. We believe that a substantial market opportunity exists in this area, and Canterbury Institute has the knowledge and expertise as well as the resources available to capitalize on this opportunity. We believe every disease deserves medical treatment."

About Canterbury Institute, LLC

Canterbury Institute, LLC is focused on developing outpatient medical addiction treatment centers that will provide greater access to care for those who are currently unable or unwilling to seek long-term residential treatment. The Company will develop facilities under the PROMETA Center brand name and will base their treatment approach around the PROMETA protocols for alcoholism and stimulant dependence.

Canterbury Institute is controlled by Stephen Reiter, the founder and former CEO of the Nature's Choice Corporation which became one of the largest vegetative waste composting companies as well as the largest manufacturer of bulk topsoil in the country. Nature's Choice was acquired by a private equity fund in 2004. Reiter is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Chill Out Creamery, one of the largest Cold Stone Creamery franchisees in the Northeast.

About PROMETA(TM)

Hythiam's PROMETA(TM) treatment protocols are designed for use by healthcare providers seeking to treat individuals diagnosed with dependencies to alcohol, cocaine or methamphetamine, as well as combinations of these drugs. The PROMETA treatment protocols comprise nutritional supplements, FDA-approved oral and IV medications used off-label and separately administered in a unique dosing algorithm, as well as psychosocial or other recovery-oriented therapy chosen by the patient and his or her treatment provider. As a result, PROMETA represents an innovative approach to managing alcohol, cocaine, or methamphetamine dependence that is designed to address physiological, nutritional, and psychosocial aspects of the disease, and is thereby intended to offer patients an opportunity to achieve sustained recovery.

About Hythiam, Inc.

Hythiam(R) is a healthcare services management company focused on delivering solutions for those suffering from alcoholism and other substance dependencies. Hythiam researches, develops, licenses and commercializes innovative physiological, nutritional, and behavioral treatment protocols that seek to address substance dependence. Additionally, Hythiam provides proprietary administrative services to assist physicians and facilities with staff education, marketing and outreach support, and outcomes tracking for data analysis. For further information, please click on www.hythiam.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Except for statements of historical fact, the matters discussed in this press release are forward looking and made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements reflect numerous assumptions and involve a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control that may cause actual results to differ materially from stated expectations. These risk factors include, among others, limited operating history and lack of statistically significant formal research studies, the risk that treatment protocols might not be effective, difficulty in developing, exploiting and protecting proprietary technologies, intense competition and substantial regulation in the healthcare industry; and additional risks factors as discussed in the reports filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available on its website at http://www.sec.gov.