ONYX Announces Changes to its Board.

RICHMOND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 17, 1996--Randy H. Thurman and Wendell Wierenga, Ph.D. have been appointed to the board of directors of ONYX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ONXX), the company announced today.

With the addition of two directors, the ONYX board now has ten members.

We are fortunate to have two such highly-regarded veterans of the pharmaceutical industry joining our board at the same time," said Hollings Renton, chief executive officer of ONYX. "Thurman and Dr. Wierenga together bring years of strategic business and scientific experience to ONYX, which greatly complements the existing strengths of our board."

Thurman, age 47, most recently served as chairman and chief executive officer of Corning Life Sciences, a diversified health services company specializing in contract pharmaceutical research and commercial laboratory testing.

From 1985 to 1993, Thurman held a series of progressively responsible positions at Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, including president of Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Pharmaceuticals and president of Rorer Pharmaceuticals. He is founder and chairman of Health Care Strategies 2000, a global consulting firm focusing on healthcare strategy.

Thurman is an economics graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and holds a master's degree in management from Webster University, St. Louis.

Wierenga, age 48, is senior vice president for research at Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research, a division of Warner-Lambert. He played a key role in establishing the 1995 partnership between Parke-Davis and ONYX in the field of cell cycle therapeutics, and is an active member of the research management committee that now oversees the program.

At Parke-Davis, Wierenga is responsible for preclinical drug discovery, as well as preclinical drug development, including toxicology, pharmacokinetics, and drug metabolism. He chairs the research and development committee at Parke-Davis; was a member of the board of scientific counselors of the National Cancer Institute and has authored more than 55 articles in the scientific literature.

Prior to joining Parke-Davis in 1990, he served as executive director of drug discovery research and, earlier, as director of cancer and infectious disease research at the Upjohn Company. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University.

ONYX also announced the departure of Wolfgang Hartwig, Ph.D. from its board of directors. Dr. Hartwig previously represented Bayer in the collaboration between Bayer Corporation and ONYX for the development of small molecule therapeutics based on mutations in the Ras gene. He recently was named head of international research at Bayer and is now based in Wuppertal, Germany.

Hartwig is replaced on the ONYX board by Michael J. Berendt, Ph.D., who has been appointed senior vice president for research in the pharmaceutical division at Bayer. As part of his new post, Dr. Berendt, age 47, has assumed responsibility at Bayer for the Bayer/ONYX partnership. He joined the Bayer group in 1993 and previously served as vice president of Bayer's Institute for Bone and Joint Disorders and Cancer.

Prior to that, Berendt was responsible for immunology and infectious disease research at Pfizer, where he served as group director of drug discovery. He earned his Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology at Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia.

ONYX Pharmaceuticals was founded in 1992 for the purpose of discovering and developing novel therapeutics based upon the genetics of human disease, with an initial emphasis on cancer.

The company focuses on defining the function of certain mutated genes which are known to cause cancer, and on developing innovative therapies to reverse the effects of the mutation or to kill the cancer cell.

ONYX pursues a strategy of establishing corporate partnerships that provide complementary skills in drug development, clinical trials, regulatory affairs, and marketing and sales.

CONTACT: ONYX Pharmaceuticals

Jana R. Cuiper, 510/262-8775