SAN DIEGO, CA - (April 6, 1998) Structural Bioinformatics Inc., (SBI) based in San Diego, California, announces a drug discovery collaboration with Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., of Japan. The target of the collaboration is undisclosed.

SBI will develop a list of required characteristics for a small molecule drug candidate using SBI's proprietary algorithms and computational skills, based on the dynamic shape of Yamanouchi's protein molecule target. These characteristics will then be screened on computer against a database of molecules to discover candidates for development into drugs. This computational screening greatly speeds the discovery process, at a fraction of the cost of high-throughput screening with thousands of actual chemicals.

"Yamanouchi is an excellent partner for us, and they've picked an excellent first target," says Dr. Edward T. Maggio, CEO of Structural Bioinformatics. "SBI brings a lot of power to the collaboration. With our new supercomputers, we can screen in minutes what it takes days to do in a lab. I think SBI can really contribute to Yamanouchi's future."

Dr. T. Takenaka, Managing Director of Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. says "SBI's computational molecular modeling and virtual screening technology is a very attractive approach for our drug discovery research and we are looking forward to finding new compounds through this collaboration."

Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., is the third-largest pharmaceutical company in Japan. Headquartered in Tokyo and established in 1923, Yamanouchi is expanding its business base to Europe, the United States and Asia, and employs nearly 8,400 people worldwide. As a research-based developer, manufacturer and marketer, Yamanouchi has introduced several world-class drugs to the international market, including the H2 antagonist famotidine, the calcium antagonist nicardipine, and tamsulosin, a treatment for functional symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Structural Bioinformatics has developed a supercomputational operating system making possible the immediate and practical use of genomic (gene sequence) data in a broad range of structure-based drug discovery and design processes leading to the rapid design and identification of small molecule lead compounds. SBI is building corporate partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, gene discovery companies, and combinatorial chemistry companies ranging from broad technology collaborations to assistance with specific drug targets or target groups.