For Immediate Release, May 6, 2002

TORONTO, ONTARIO (May 6, 2002) – Affinium Pharmaceuticals, a leader in structure guided drug discovery, and The Hospital for Sick Children (HSC), one of the largest pediatric cystic fibrosis (CF) centers in North America, today announced that they have been awarded a grant to discover novel targets for CF. The grant is part of a US$5 million investment in proteomics research by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutics Inc., the drug discovery arm of the CF Foundation (US).

Affinium Pharmaceuticals and HSC will study the interaction of the disease causing CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein with other protein partners within the cell. An inherited mutated CFTR gene produces a form of the CFTR protein that is retained inside of cells rather than mobilized to the cell surface, and is the most common mutation associated with the CF condition. Other membrane proteins will also be interrogated as potential targets.

Dr. Christian Burks, Affinium's Chief Scientific Officer, said, "We are delighted to be collaborating with The Hospital for Sick Children and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in this joint academic and industrial proteomics initiative. Our proprietary systems for protein expression and identification of protein-protein interactions were designed to identify key molecular targets for drug discovery, and should provide a very productive approach to identifying such targets in the cellular pathways with which CFTR is associated."

Affinium scientists will deploy Affinium’s ProteoWorks™ and ProteoActive™ systems, designed for the production of recombinant proteins and elucidation of interactions among cellular proteins and between them and small molecules.

Dr. Gergely Lukacs, a senior scientist in the HSC Research Institute and an associate professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at University of Toronto, will oversee the HSC component of the collaborative program. “This program will build on years of cystic fibrosis research at The Hospital for Sick Children. I look forward to collaborating with scientists at Affinium to move experimental findings more rapidly into the drug discovery process,” said Dr. Lukacs.

The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute is a world-class scientific research centre performing fundamental and clinical research leading to the improved understanding, prevention, treatment and care of children's diseases. The Hospital for Sick Children, affiliated with the University of Toronto, is the largest pediatric academic health sciences centre in Canada and one of the largest in the world.

Affinium‘ Pharmaceuticals is a structure guided drug discovery company. The Company’s proprietary, integrated drug discovery process is designed for rapid advancement of small molecule programs from gene to clinic. Affinium is actively engaged on its own internal small molecule programs. The Company’s processes enable high throughput target production, determination of target function and structure, and determination of target structure with bound hits and leads to accelerate chemistry for new medicines. The Company also integrates the premier discovery capabilities of Aurora Biosciences 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, Genesys Capital Partners Inc., and HBM BioVentures (Henri B. Meier, Chairman), as well as industrial partners Aurora Biosciences and the Bruker Companies.

Affinium and Affinium Pharmaceuticals are trademark names of the Company.