LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 10, 2002--Neurion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (www.neurionpharma.com), an ion channel drug discovery company targeting central nervous system (CNS) diseases, announced today that it has appointed Steven E. Hyman, M.D., to its new Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). The SAB, to be composed of eminent academic scientists and clinicians, will advise Neurion’s senior research and business management on key scientific and clinical issues and developments that will impact the growth of the company.

Dr. Hyman is the Provost of Harvard University. A leading scholar at the intersection of molecular neurobiology and psychiatry, Dr. Hyman has been the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, the federal agency charged with generating the knowledge needed to understand, treat, and prevent mental illness. Dr. Hyman also served as director of psychiatry research at Massachusetts General Hospital, director of the interdisciplinary Division on Addictions at the Harvard Medical School, and the first faculty director of the University's Interfaculty Initiative on Mind/Brain/Behavior. Dr. Hyman received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974 (summa cum laude), and his M.A. from the University of Cambridge in 1976, where he was a Mellon Fellow studying the history and philosophy of science. He received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School (cum laude) in 1980. Following an internship in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a residency in psychiatry at McLean Hospital, and a clinical fellowship in neurology at MGH, he was postdoctoral fellow at Harvard in molecular biology.

Henry A. Lester, Ph.D, Bren Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), co-founder and Director of Neurion and Co-Chairman of the SAB, said "I am honored and delighted that Dr. Hyman, a colleague and friend, has accepted this appointment to the company's SAB. Steve excels as a scientist, clinician and administrator. We admire both his insights into the basis of neuroscience diseases, and his knowledge about research efforts at the national and international level to develop new treatments for such diseases, including neuropsychiatric illness. These strengths will contribute greatly to our research efforts, and ultimately, to the development of safer and more effective therapies for patients."

Dr. Hyman said, "I am pleased to join Neurion’s Scientific Advisory Board. The company’s research on the structure and function of ion channels that are involved in diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease and depression has the potential to improve our ability to design new drugs more precisely at the molecular level."

Neurion Pharmaceuticals was co-founded in January, 2002, by Dr. Henry Lester and Dr. Dennis A. Dougherty, The George Grant Hoag Professor of Chemistry at Caltech, who is also a Director of the company and Co-Chairman of the SAB. Drs. Lester and Dougherty have collaborated for over a decade on research into the structure and function of ion channels, a class of proteins that are a major target of drug development efforts within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, particularly for CNS diseases and disorders. Together, Drs. Lester and Dougherty developed the Neurion Precision Neurochemistry Platform (NP2). NP2 enables the development of membrane protein models with accuracy exceeding the capabilities of other difficult and time-consuming methods, including x-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy. Neurion intends to leverage its NP2 technology to discover and optimize new CNS therapeutics. The company also intends to develop high-precision ion channel models for screening against a highly prevalent form of drug-induced cardiac toxicity, known as hERG blockade.

Neurion is currently pursuing research alliances with leading pharmaceutical companies as well as embarking upon its own internal drug discovery program. The company received a founding equity investment from Convergent Ventures (www.convergentventures.com), a Los Angeles-based life science venture capital firm.

CONTACT:
Jonathan G. Lasch
CEO & President
11766 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 1420
Los Angeles, CA 90025
310-444-3241, Ext. 16

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