Pleodrug for CMT by end of 2010

[Guest guest]

PARIS - (Business Wire) Pharnext SAS, a biopharmaceutical company specializing

in the development of innovative treatments based on Pleotherapy™ for severe

neurological diseases, today announced that it had closed a €4.8-million Series

A round of funding on June 3rd (corresponding to a company valuation of €45

million). Part of the fresh investment was provided by Pharnext's co-founding

investor Truffle Capital, which remains the majority shareholder. The remaining

were contributed by Aurinvest Capital 2, Financière Boscary and a group of some

of France's best-known entrepreneurs - Beigbeder (founder of Selftrade,

Poweo, Audacia and AgroGeneration), Claude Darmon (former President of the

CEGELEC group) and Olivier Fulconis (former Executive VP and Chief Marketing

Officer at Converteam).

This round of fundraising will enable Pharnext to consider launching the

first-in-man clinical trials of its Pleodrug™ in the treatment of

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease before the end of 2010. Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease

is a chronic, severe, invalidating neuromuscular disease which affects 3 million

people worldwide and for which there is no cure at present. The fundraising will

also help initiate and/or continue in vitro and in vivo research programmes on

the use of Pleodrugs™ in other serious pathologies: Alzheimer's disease,

chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, polycystic kidney disease,

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, hyperlipidaemia and diabetes.

Pharnext has particularly solid financial foundations:

- a €2.5-million round of seed fundraising with Truffle Capital (December 2007).

- two agreements with the pharmaceutical group Ipsen, potentially worth up to

€94 million in upfront and milestone payments (June 2009).

- an initial grant for work on Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease from Oséo, the French

state innovation agency (2007).

- a grant from the French Muscular Dystrophy Association (AFM, 2009).

Pharnext has designed a novel, proprietary platform (Pleotherapy™) based on

network pharmacology. The company's discovery engine identifies rational drug

combinations (Pleodrugs™) made up of individual Pleocompounds™. This innovative

approach could provide a solution to the ongoing and worrying decline in

pharmaceutical pipeline productivity.

About Pharnext

Pharnext is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and

licensing new pharmaceutical treatments based on intelligent Pleocompounds™ that

form the basis of Pleodrugs™.

PHARNEXT

Professor Cohen, +33 1 55 42 62 00 / 03

daniel.cohen@...

or

ALIZE RP

Caroline Carmagnol, +33 6 64 18 99 59

caroline@...