Cengent Therapeutics and the Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering Collaborate to Provide the First Integrated High-Throughput Computational Screening and X-Ray Crystallography Service-Offering.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

BIOWIRE2K

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 23, 2004

Cengent Therapeutics Inc. of San Diego, and The Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering (CBSE), located at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, announce the creation of the first integrated computational and physical-structure determination service-offering designed to support, facilitate, and complement the in-house drug discovery efforts of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

Under the co-teaming arrangement, Cengent Therapeutics and the CBSE now provide a comprehensive solution for rapid 3D structure-based drug-lead discovery and structure-based optimization. The service may also provide structurally validated initial drug leads in support of existing in-house screening efforts by providing compound pre-selection and overflow capacity.

This collaboration expands the CBSE's initiative to provide high throughput crystallographic solutions for biotechnology and pharmaceutical drug discovery programs. "Our expertise in HTP structure/function determination and access to the most powerful beamlines at Argonne, coupled with Cengent's Genes to Leads(R) service will increase the speed and success rate for discovery of new therapeutic compounds," commented Dr. Lawrence DeLucas, Director of the CBSE. The value of this combination is also extended to Cengent's internal drug discovery effort with crystallographic support from the CBSE for the optimization of compounds in the Cengent pipeline.

Dr. Ed Maggio, CEO of Cengent Therapeutics commented, "The unique combination of Cengent's and CBSE's technologies allows us to formulate a very competitive rapid discovery and optimization service-offering for our pharmaceutical clients. Cengent's Genes to Leads(R) service uses dynamic structural differences between flexible drug target proteins and structurally similar "anti-targets" to computationally select multiple initial leads with good selectivity in as little as 60 days. The CBSE's unparalleled ability to generate X-ray co-crystal structures of drug targets and drug leads on a high throughput basis, allows us to jointly deliver the complete package. The deliverables: Precise knowledge of the dynamic 3D structure of a drug target and its intermolecular interactions with multiple small molecule drug leads at an atomic level. The results are delivered in Cengent's StructureBank(R) web-based relational database environment which allows large-scale 3D comparative analysis of multiple chemical and physical properties of drug targets and their structurally similar 'anti targets'."

About the Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering

Since 1986, The CBSE is dedicated to determining the structure/function of biological molecules supporting structural proteomics and drug discovery methodology for chronic and infectious diseases. As one of the largest x-ray crystallography facilities in the world (over 115 staff including 18+ PhD level crystallographers), an NIH Center for Structural Genomics, and a designated NASA Research Partnership Center, the CBSE remains one of the most prolific generators of completely novel high resolution protein structures and co-crystal structures to reveal detailed molecular interactions in drug discovery and life science research. We have integrated our high throughput technologies in structure based drug discovery and x-ray crystallography to embrace the genes to drugs paradigm by attaining both speed and accuracy in the identification, optimization and development of new therapeutics that are central to modern pharmaceutical research and development. The CBSE is located on the campus of The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Please visit our website: http://www.cbse.uab.edu.

About Cengent Therapeutics

Cengent Therapeutics is a structure-guided drug discovery company utilizing integrated, proprietary computational and experimental lab technologies to accelerate and optimize the drug discovery process. Cengent provides pharmaceutical and biotech companies with a comprehensive suite of structural services and capabilities for accelerating and optimizing the drug discovery process. The Company's technologies include Genes To Leads(R) -- yielding novel drug leads in 60-120 days; Structure Determination Services including X-ray crystallography and Cengent's ProMax(R) 1.5A to 2A RMS augmented homology modeling service; and StructureBank(R), a database for the large-scale comparative analysis of protein targets and anti-targets. The company has applied its technologies to advance the drug discovery programs of a growing number of external research collaborators and has proprietary programs in diabetes, infectious disease, and cancer.

Our shareholders include Perseus-Soros, New York Life, BioAsia, Burrill Capital, Inglewood Ventures, Dansk Kapital, Deutsche Asset Management, Merrill Lynch, Invesco, and Veritas; corporate investors include Takara Shuzo, IBM, Quest Diagnostics, Encysive Pharmaceuticals, and Johnson & Johnson Development Corp. For more information on Cengent Therapeutics, its drug pipeline, products, and services, please visit the company's web site at http://www.cengent.com/.

Disclaimer

Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical are "forward-looking" statements, which involve a high degree of risk and uncertainty. Such statements are only predictions, and the actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements.