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For Immediate Release, August 6, 2003 Dr.
Charles Grier, GlaxoSmithKline, TORONTO, ONTARIO (August 6, 2003) – Affinium Pharmaceuticals, a leader in structure guided drug discovery, today announced the appointment of Dr. Charles “Bucky” Grier to the Board of Directors. Dr. Grier is a Director at GSK Ventures, the venture group at GSK’s R&D Division. Before joining GSK Ventures, Dr. Grier was most recently Director, Scientific Licensing in Worldwide Business Development. He has attained a breadth of commercial experience through progressively senior roles in GSK since he started at the former SmithKlineBeecham site in 1989 as a Clinical Research Scientist in U.S. Medical Affairs and Clinical Development. Dr. Grier holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology from The Pennsylvania State University, and did post-doctoral training in Molecular Pharmacology at Smith Kline and French Laboratories. Affinium Chairman and CEO Dr. John D. Mendlein said of Dr. Grier’s appointment: “Bucky has an extensive network of contacts across the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and venture capital fields, as well as significant experience in venture capital at GSK Ventures. His business development experience, combined with significant expertise in clinical development, will be invaluable for Affinium’s Board as we continue to expand our pharmaceutical pipeline.” Affinium recently acquired a late stage antibacterial program from GlaxoSmithKline, along with worldwide discovery, development, marketing and distribution rights with respect to compounds and intellectual property generated by GSK. Affinium Pharmaceuticals is a structure guided drug discovery company. Affinium’s pharmaceutical pipeline includes discovery programs in infectious disease and against a target family. The Company’s proprietary, integrated R&D engine is designed for rapid advancement of small molecule programs from gene to clinic. The Company’s R&D engine enables 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, and the chemistry capabilities of Ylektra, Inc. and Albany Molecular Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMRI) to advance Affinium’s internal drug discovery efforts. 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 GSK Ventures, Albany Molecular Research, Inc., Invitrogen Corporation (Nasdaq: IVGN), and the Bruker Companies. Affinium and Affinium Pharmaceuticals are trademark names of Affinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. For more information, please contact: Affinium™
Pharmaceuticals Executive
Contact: Dr. John D. Mendlein |