ActivX Biosciences Announces Promotion of Jonathan Burbaum, Ph.D.

September 24, 2002

LA JOLLA, California, September 24, 2002 . ActivX Biosciences, Inc., a privately held biotechnology company developing "chemo-proteomics" technologies for drug discovery, announced today the promotion of Jonathan Burbaum, Ph.D., to the newly created position of Vice President, Advanced Technology. As Executive Director, Advanced Technology at ActivX, Dr. Burbaum has been instrumental in the design of ActivX's high-throughput automated protein analysis system for use with ActivX's activity-based chemical probes. In his new position, Dr. Burbaum will be responsible for the implementation and further development of several proteomics technology platforms, including the areas of high-throughput screening, capillary electrophoresis and mass spectrometry.

Dr. Burbaum has over ten years of experience in pharmaceutical research. Before joining ActivX he was employed by Pharmacopeia, Inc., where he was responsible for technology development as well as managing collaborations with pharmaceutical clients. During his tenure at Pharmacopeia he was responsible for the design, development, and implementation of Pharmacopeia's miniaturized screening platform as well as a high-throughput screening effort that identified a number of novel lead structures in drug discovery programs. Prior to Pharmacopeia, Dr. Burbaum was at Merck Research Laboratories where he was responsible for protein expression and crystallography in the matrix metalloproteinase and immunophilin projects. During his post-doctoral work at MIT, Dr. Burbaum researched and helped establish intellectual property on kinase inhibitors with novel mechanisms of action. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University, and has co-authored 25 original papers and seven review articles. In addition, he holds eight issued US patents and has presented at over 30 international symposia.

"Dr. Burbaum's promotion signals the progress we have made in high-throughput protein characterization and analysis," said John W. Kozarich, Ph.D., President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer of ActivX Biosciences. "His considerable experience in building unique and creative technologies from the ground up will be invaluable to the further development of our novel chemo-proteomics platform."

ActivX Biosciences, Inc., (www.activx.com), a privately held biotechnology company in La Jolla, California, is a pioneer in the field of activity-based proteomics, the identification and analysis of active proteins key in both normal and disease situations. By focusing on protein activity, ActivX addresses disease mechanisms directly, in contrast to standard genomics and proteomics techniques. ActivX technology includes novel chemical probes integrated with a high-throughput protein analysis platform to rapidly interrogate the activities of proteins in all ranges of abundance in any biological sample, a process it has termed "chemo-proteomics." ActivX and its partners are using its proprietary technology to solve critical problems in drug discovery and development, including identifying novel drug targets and biomarkers, guiding the medicinal chemistry optimization of lead compounds through profiling and selectivity analysis against active proteins in target cells and tissues, and assessing efficacy and toxicity for candidate and established drugs.

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