For Immediate Release, February 26, 2003

TORONTO, ONTARIO (February 26, 2003) – Affinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leader in structure guided drug discovery, announced today an investment agreement under which Affinium will acquire worldwide discovery, development, marketing and distribution rights to compounds that were generated from a GSK antibacterial research program. GSK will receive a significant equity position in Affinium. Other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The acquisition includes late stage leads and intellectual property on high resolution target structures for a novel target, and multiple series of compounds resulting from lead optimization. These novel inhibitors have the potential to be useful in the treatment of serious staphylococcal infections, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococci infections. Existing compounds have demonstrated excellent antibacterial activity and in vivo efficacy in animal models.

GSK's Ventures Vice President, Osagie Imasogie stated that "The Ventures Team is pleased to have identified a strong, experienced and motivated management team that will maximize the potential of this unique antibacterial program."

“Scientists at GSK are recognized as world leaders in pharmaceutical research, and the company has a strong antibacterial franchise. The acquisition of this program forward integrates our drug discovery pipeline. Our structure guided discovery capabilities are perfectly suited to rapidly advancing this program into the clinic,” said John D. Mendlein, Ph.D., J.D., Affinium’s Chief Executive Officer. “We are very pleased that GSK Ventures has recognized Affinium’s unique structure guided drug discovery capabilities.”

Affinium Pharmaceuticals is a structure guided drug discovery company. Affinium is actively engaged in its own internal small molecule discovery programs. The Company’s proprietary, integrated drug discovery process is designed for rapid advancement of small molecule programs from gene to clinic. The Company’s processes enable high throughput target production, determination of target function, and visualization of target structure with bound hits and leads to accelerate chemistry in the discovery of new medicines. The Company also integrates the premier discovery capabilities of Vertex pharmaceuticals to advance Affinium’s internal drug discovery efforts. Affinium’s processes feature mass spectrometry, NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography technologies from Bruker Daltonics, Bruker BioSpin and Bruker AXS respectively. The Company’s investors include the Lombard Odier Immunology Fund, Schweizerhall Holding AG, Genesys Capital Partners Inc., and HBM BioVentures, as well as industrial partners Vertex and the Bruker Companies.

Affinium and Affinium Pharmaceuticals are trademark names of the Company.