Genaissance Promotes Richard Judson, Ph.D. To Vice President Of Informatics And Appoints Martin Schultz, Ph.D. To Scientific Advisory Board.

--Key Appointments Strengthen Company's IT and Genetics Interface--

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Dec. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Genaissance Pharmaceuticals, Inc. a population genomics and informatics company, announced today the promotion of Richard Judson, Ph.D., Director of Informatics to Vice President of Informatics. The Company also announced that it has broadened its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) to include Martin H. Schultz, Ph.D. The informatics and computational biology expertise of Drs. Judson and Schultz will be invaluable as Genaissance enhances its system to make the critical connection between genetics and drug response. The Company uses proprietary genomics and informatics technologies, comprising clinical and genetic databases and sophisticated genetic software programs.

Dr. Judson joined the informatics team at Genaissance in February of this year as Associate Director of Informatics and has since built a world-class team consisting of informatics experts. Previously, Dr. Judson was Group Leader in the Bioinformatics Department at CuraGen Corporation, where he was responsible for developing software for protein-protein interactions and DNA sequence analysis. Dr. Judson spent 7 years at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore California where he was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff. There he led computational drug design and protein structure modeling projects and developed new algorithms for predicting the structure of both small molecules and proteins. Dr. Judson holds a M.A. and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Princeton University.

"Dr. Judson's extraordinary efforts to date have been instrumental in allowing Genaissance's informatics and genomics technologies to be fashioned into a seamless system capable of unravelling the genetic component of drug response. His experience in developing intuitive computer interfaces to analyze complex data sets will be an important asset as we continue to evaluate genes of pharmaceutical relevance," said Gualberto Ruano, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer at Genaissance.

"I'm excited both about the team we've put together and the great progress we've already made. We offer our partners unique and powerful tools to understand and make use of genetic diversity in clinical trials. We could only do this by bringing together smart and dedicated people with a range of expertise - population genetics, molecular biology, software development, and biostatistics," said Richard Judson, Ph.D.

Dr. Schultz is an Arthur K. Watson Professor of Computing Science and former Chairman of the Department of Computer Science at Yale University. Dr. Schultz founded Scientific Computing Associates, Inc. (SCAI), which developed LINDA(R), a parallel programming language that enables users to create parallel programs that perform on a wide range of computing platforms. Schultz has extensive experience in high performance supercomputing, including the development of design automation tools, and other techniques for advanced visualization and database applications. In addition to advanced database and automation applications, his efforts have been directed at understanding computational fluid dynamics, electronic design automation tools, and quantum chemistry.

"Dr. Schultz joins Genaissance at a time when the pharmaceutical industry is recognizing the value of the Company's integrated informatics and genomics solutions. His extensive computational skills and commercial software experience will greatly augment our internal informatics capabilities," said Gualberto Ruano. "With the addition of Dr. Schultz, we have assembled a diverse SAB that combines highly specialized genomics, information technology, and drug development expertise with strategic knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry."

Dr. Schultz received a B.S. degree from the California Institute of Technology, A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University and an honorary M.A. degree from Yale University. Dr. Schultz joins a distinguished Genaissance Scientific Advisory Board, which includes Neil Risch, Ph.D., Stephen Liggett, M.D., Fritz Buhler, M.D., Baruch Blumberg, M.D., Louis Lasagna, M.D., Richard Myers, Ph.D., Frank Ruddle, Ph.D., Alex Makriyannis, Ph.D. and Michael Snyder, Ph.D.

Genaissance Pharmaceuticals, Inc. develops and markets proprietary population genomics and informatics technologies that enable genetics to be connected with drug response. The Company maximizes the commercial utility of gene variation data derived from genes of pharmaceutical significance by applying its DecoGen(TM) Informatics System and proprietary HAP(TM) Markers. DecoGen(TM) Informatics is a proprietary clinical software product consisting of a search engine for systematically connecting clinical outcomes with multiple genetic markers at a high level of statistical certainty. HAP(TM) Markers represent combinations of single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs for a given gene as they are found in the two chromosomes each individual inherits. Genaissance's technology will serve as a major catalyst to pharmaceutical partners in validating targets, improving the success rate of clinical trials and managing the life cycle of approved drugs. The Company is located in Science Park, adjacent to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.