For Immediate Release, May 8, 2002

Toronto, Canada, May 8, 2002 – Affinium Pharmaceuticals today announced a major strategic alliance with Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE) for structure guided drug discovery for Pfizer therapeutic programs.

The Pfizer-Affinium structure-centric discovery alliance is designed to interrogate targets from multiple enzyme classes for new medicines. The alliance leverages Affinium’s proprietary, automated functional, chemical and structural proteomics systems for drug discovery. Pfizer will provide selected targets to the alliance for target production, protein-protein interaction determination, small molecule interrogation and structure determination. Affinium scientists will deploy their integrated, proprietary mass spectrometry, NMR and X-RAY systems for many of the alliance’s ambitious goals. In addition, the alliance is designed to accelerate medicinal chemistry with Affinium’s proprietary ChemVision‘ System for the determination of target structures complexed with hits and leads. Affinium will also apply its internal chemistry capabilities to selected targets.

The strategic alliance is valued at up to $30 million US without royalty payments. Support for the three-year alliance from Pfizer includes payments to Affinium for R&D support, database licenses, discovery and clinical milestones and royalties from products. Additional financial terms were not disclosed.

Dr. John D. Mendlein, Affinium's Chairman and CEO, said, "Pfizer has an excellent reputation in the industry for creating value as a drug discovery partner and for strong structure based drug design programs. We are delighted to be collaborating with Pfizer in the deployment of our integrated, structure guided drug discovery engine to accelerate chemistry efforts. As our first announced major pharmaceutical deal, the Pfizer alliance reflects the strength of our scientists and internal drug discovery processes for rapid, parallel interrogation of target biology, chemistry and three dimensional structure to enable the rapid creation of multiple IND opportunities."

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 in 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, a subsidiary 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, 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.