San Diego CA, USA, February 21, 2002 -- San Diego-based Structural Bioinformatics, Inc. (SBI) today announced that the company has received a notice of allowance of claims from the U.S. Patent Office for a family of drug-like molecules that inhibit the activity of anthrax lethal factor.

When Bacillus anthracis infects some people, the microorganism produces a number of proteins including lethal factor, a protease that can destroy other proteins inside an infected host's cells. A small molecule that can inhibit the action of anthrax lethal factor can potentially provide significant protection against anthrax for prophylaxis and acute therapy, SBI reports.

"Structural Bioinformatics' technology platform is broadly applicable to the development of non-peptide agents with activity against important therapeutic targets in infectious, inflammatory and metabolic diseases, as well as cancer," stated Edward T. Maggio, Ph.D., chairman and chief executive officer. "In infectious disease, we are primarily focused on targeting metalloproteases, of which the anthrax lethal factor is one significant example. Our intention is to further optimize our drug candidate in this program prior to the initiation of clinical trials."

Dr. Maggio will provide additional information on SBI's R&D programs during his corporate overview scheduled today at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time at the BIO CEO & Investor Conference in New York.

SBI's ability to discover and develop an inhibitor of lethal factor is based on the company's structure-based drug design technology which complements their DynaPharm^® technology. Both technologies focus on the active sites of target proteins, derived from dynamic simulations of the changes in flexible protein shape.

This process permits the generation of active initial drug lead compounds from a drug target sequence within 60-120 days and with typical "hit rates" of 10%, (a 1,000-fold to 10,000-fold improvement over typical high-throughput screening). Candidate compounds are then validated through "wet" chemistry and optimized through structure-based medicinal chemistry prior to preclinical testing.

About Structural Bioinformatics, Inc.

Structural Bioinformatics, Inc. (SBI) is an innovative drug discovery company built on a proprietary proteomics platform. SBI has developed advanced technologies that unify 3-D protein structural information with pharmacogenomics, bioinformatics, and chemistry solutions. SBI’s products and services include Genes to Leads^®, a proprietary in silico technology that provides initial small-molecule leads in less than 120 days; ProMax™, a database of more than 6000 3-D protein structures of atomic resolution; the Variome™ structural pharmacogenomics database; and StructureBank™, a relational management database for storing and retrieving structures. SBI has offices in San Diego, Calif.; Cambridge, Mass.; Washington, D.C., and Hørsholm, Denmark. More information may be found on SBI’s website at http://www.strubix.com