The most ambitious European project for tackling bottlenecks in Alzheimer’s disease research and drug discovery

PARIS — “The participation of ExonHit in this European initiative further validates our SpliceArray™ technology and our R&D expertise in Alzheimer’s disease”

ExonHit Therapeutics S.A. (Paris:ALEHT) (Alternext: ALEHT) is pleased to announce that it has been chosen to participate in the European Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) consortium focused on identifying biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease (PharmaCog).

PharmaCog focuses on translational science and harmonization of research tools. Ultimately PharmaCog should provide the tools needed to define more precisely the potential of a drug candidate, reduce the development time of new medicines and thus accelerate the approvals of promising new medicines.

“ExonHit’s unique understanding of transcriptomic analysis will be critical to PharmaCog as it could enable the identification of blood-based markers of disease presence and progression,” said Professor Olivier Blin, Head of the Center of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutic Evaluations of Marseille Hospital. “Such markers are critical in drug development because they provide scientists with greater insights on how results found during preclinical testing are likely to be reproduced in the clinic.”

“The participation of ExonHit in this European initiative further validates our SpliceArray™ technology and our R&D expertise in Alzheimer’s disease,” stated Loïc Maurel, M.D., President of the Management Board of ExonHit Therapeutics. “Alzheimer’s disease is an area of prime interest for ExonHit and the experience we have gained developing AclarusDx™ Alzheimer’s test, our blood-based test to select or stratify patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and EHT 0202, our Phase 2 compound for Alzheimer’s disease, will certainly benefit PharmaCog initiative.”

About PharmaCog

PharmaCog stands for “Prediction of cognitive properties of new drug candidates for neurodegenerative diseases in early clinical development”. It is a cross party project, co-coordinated by GlaxoSmithKline R&D and the Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France. It brings together top scientists from 5 small and medium size enterprises, 11 global pharmaceutical companies, 12 academic institutions; in addition, 1 patient group representing 9 countries across Europe will ensure the dissemination of PharmaCog results. The European Medicines Agency (EMA), an associated partner of the project, will share project progress and discuss the implications for drug development in Europe.

The PharmaCog consortium consists of the following participants: ExonHit Therapeutics, Innovative Concepts in Drug Development, Alzprotect, Qualissima, Innovative Health Diagnostics, GlaxoSmithkline, AstraZeneca, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Novartis, Servier, UCB Pharma, Merck Serono, Eli Lilly, Janssen Pharmaceutica, F. Hoffmann-LaRoche, H. Lundbeck A/S, Université de la Méditerranée (France), Institut d’investigacions Biomediques August Pi I Sunyer (Spain), Université de Lille (France), Universitätklinikum Leipzig (Germany), Universidad de Murcia (Spain), Universität Duisburg-Essen (Germany), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France), Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (France), University of Verona (Italy), Provincia Lombardo-Veneta – Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni di Dio – Fatebenefratelli (Italy), Universita deglu Studi di Foggia (Italy) and the Mario Negri Institute (Italy), Alzheimer Europe and the EMA as the associated partner.

PharmaCog is funded through the European Community’s “Seventh Framework” Programme (FP7/2007-2013) for an innovative scheme, the Innovative Medicines Initiate (IMI). PharmaCog’s budget is EUR 20 million of which EUR 9 million will come from IMI and the remaining EUR 11 million from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA). For more information, please visit the PharmaCog website hosted by Alzheimer Europe: www.alzheimer-europe.org.

About the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)

IMI is a young and unique public-private partnership, founded in 2008 by the pharmaceutical industry, represented by the EFPIA, and the European Communities, represented by the European Commission, to address bottlenecks in drug discovery and accelerate medicines to patients.

The aim of IMI is to support a faster discovery and development of better medicines for patients and to enhance Europe’s competitiveness by ensuring that its biopharmaceutical sector remains a dynamic high-technology sector. IMI has a total budget of EUR 2 billion which will be shared across multiple research projects aimed at bringing innovative medicines more quickly to the market. Following the 1st call of proposals, 15 projects have been selected which will foster understanding of health issues such as neurodegenerative disorders, diabetes, pain, severe asthma and psychiatric disorders while increasing drug safety (1). For more information, please visit http://www.imi-europe.org.

About ExonHit Therapeutics

ExonHit Therapeutics (Alternext: ALEHT) is a fast-emerging healthcare player active in both therapeutics and diagnostics. The company is applying its proprietary technology, based on the analysis of alternative RNA splicing, to develop innovative molecular diagnostic tests and therapeutics for neurodegenerative and cancer indications. ExonHit has a balanced investment strategy with internal development programs and strategic collaborations, in particular with bioMérieux and Allergan.

ExonHit is headquartered in Paris, France and has U.S. offices in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The company is listed on Alternext of NYSE Euronext Paris. For more information, please visit http://www.exonhit.com.

Disclaimer

This press release contains elements that are not historical facts including, without limitation, certain statements on future expectations and other forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on management’s current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those anticipated.

In addition, ExonHit Therapeutics, its shareholders, and its affiliates, directors, officers, advisors and employees have not verified the accuracy of, and make no representations or warranties in relation to, statistical data or predictions contained in this press release that were taken or derived from third party sources or industry publications, and such statistical data and predictions are used in this press release for information purposes only.

Lastly, this press release may be drafted in the French and English languages. In an event of differences between the texts, the French language version shall prevail.

References

(1) EFPIA press release of May 18, 2009: Innovative Medicines Initiative: €246 million to support public-private research cooperation for a fast development of better medicines

http://www.efpia.eu/Content/Default.asp?PageID=559&DocID=6888