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Hamburg, Germany | Oxford, UK | Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA - Evotec OAI AG (Deutsche Börse: EVT, Prime Standard), a partner for integrated high-value-added drug discovery services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and Psychiatric Genomics, Inc, a biotechnology company focussing on mental illness, today announced that they entered into an agreement to work on innovative small molecule drugs to treat psychiatric diseases. The collaboration marks the third agreement under the innovative alliance between Evotec OAI and Oxford Bioscience Partners (OBP) to support OBP portfolio companies with chemistry and biology drug discovery know-how. 
 
To date, Psychiatric Genomics has identified a number of promising chemical structures utilising their proprietary genome-based Multi-Parameter High Throughput ScreenSM (MPHTSSM) for new drug discovery. Under the terms of this three-year collaboration, Psychiatric Genomics will utilise Evotec OAI's medicinal chemistry skills to design focused libraries around those chemical structures and to rapidly progress compounds from hits to optimised leads. Further, the companies will integrate Evotec OAI's ADME/T profiling during this early stage to allow rapid selection of high quality candidates for advanced development. In the future, Psychiatric Genomics may leverage Evotec OAI's services in development chemistry and later scale-up of leads.
 
Joern Aldag, President and Chief Executive Officer of Evotec OAI, commented: "Psychiatric Genomics is the third company in a short period of time resulting from our innovative agreement with Oxford Bioscience Partners. We are delighted that they chose Evotec OAI to provide them with state-of-the-art chemistry support."
 
Richard Chipkin, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Psychiatric Genomics, added: "2003 marks an important year for Psychiatric Genomics and we are excited to collaborate with Evotec OAI in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. As we have managed to rapidly establish our platform and achieve promising results in a short period of time, Evotec OAI's world class chemistry know-how, combined with our innovate approach to drug discovery, positions us to continue this momentum in 2003. As we are the only company utilising human brain tissue to develop compounds for the treatment of psychiatric disorders, we will continue to focus our internal resources on analysing our library of samples to identify gene expression patterns associated with these diseases as a source for new drug targets, and develop candidates in markets where there is a large unmet medical need."
 

About Evotec OAI AG
Evotec OAI offers a comprehensive range of high-value added services and products required to increase the efficiency and at the same time reduce the risk in the identification of new drugs. By integrating proprietary state-of-the-art technologies and processes in biology, chemistry and screening, the Company has established a unique position for all the critical elements in the drug discovery and development process - from target to clinical development. Due to its extensive know how and experience Evotec OAI is the ideal partner for pharma and biotech companies world-wide. To date, Evotec OAI has completed over 1,200 projects with 150 companies, including all of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies and major biotechs.
 
The Company employs more than 600 people, primarily at its two main sites at Hamburg in Germany and Abingdon in the UK. Subsidiaries are located in Europe and North America. In 2001 Evotec OAI achieved revenues of EUR 63.2 million. Evotec OAI shares are listed on the Prime Standard of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (EVT).
 
About Psychiatric Genomics, Inc
Psychiatric Genomics, Inc creates and develops innovative small molecule drugs to treat mental illness. Many of these diseases such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, and autism can be attributed to genetic factors. Using human tissues the company identifies gene expression patterns associated with psychiatric diseases. These data are incorporated into Psychiatric Genomics' proprietary Multi-Parameter High Throughput ScreenSM method to rapidly discover unique therapeutic compounds.
 
About Psychiatric Genomics' Drug Discovery Approach
Psychiatric Genomics is the only biotech company that is basing drug discovery for psychiatric diseases on post-mortem human brain samples. Through relationships with various institutions, the Company accesses the central nervous system tissue of normal controls and patients afflicted with illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, and autism. The Company analyses these tissues using state-of-the-art microarray technologies and identifies their distinctive gene expression patterns known as disease signatures.
 
In addition, using human neuronal cell culture systems, Psychiatric Genomics identifies drug signatures, which are the genomic effects of clinically relevant therapeutics. This information is combined with the knowledge of the disease signatures to select a set of critical genes, which are used as the endpoint for the Company's revolutionary robotic system for new drug discovery called the Multi-Parameter High Throughput ScreenSM (MPHTSSM). The MPHTSSM determines the action of new chemical entities on the function of multiple genes simultaneously, thus using the power of genomics to discover the next generation of psychotherapeutics. The drugs developed through this approach have potential for improved efficacy, reduced side effects and earlier onset of action.
 
 
Psychiatric Genomics, Inc
19 Firstfield Road
Gaithersburg, MD 20878
www.psygenomics.com
 
Dr. Richard E. Chipkin, CEO
301-556-1300
 
Ms. Meg Breitenbach 
301-556-1319
mbreitenbach@psygenomics.com
 
Cynthia Isaac, Ph.D.
Senior Account Executive 
Noonan Russo Presence
212-845-4267
cynthia.Isaac@nrp-euro.com