VARIAGENICS, INC. announced today that it has completed a $19.0 million round of financing to continue its pharmacogenomic research programs and to move the Company into a new commercial phase in applying its services to the pharmaceutical industry. This round was led by The Sprout Group, the venture capital affiliate of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and included new investor A.M. Pappas and Associates as well as existing investors: Atlas Venture, Oxford Bioscience Partners, Forward Ventures, Kummell Investments Ltd., Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Advent International. As part of the financing, Philippe Chambon, M.D., Ph.D., General Partner of The Sprout Group, will join the company's Board of Directors. VARIAGENICS also announced that it has appointed Taylor J. Crouch as President and CEO. Mr. Crouch was most recently Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing and Strategic Development at PAREXEL International. Dr. Fred Ledley, the company's former President and CEO, will continue to work with the company as a Principal Scientific Advisor. "My move to VARIAGENICS reflects my strong belief that pharmacogenomics represents the most promising frontier in the healthcare industry and, as such, will make a profound impact on the evolution of disease management in the coming years," said Mr. Crouch. "This successful financing reflects our investors' belief that in the near term, pharamcogenomics is becoming a strategic engine for reducing the timelines and costs of drug development while serving to enhance the product profiles and ultimate market penetration of promising new drugs. VARIAGENICS' pragmatic approach to linking variances in the genetic pathways of drug action is enabled by its broad technology platform and its multiple year investment to characterize tens of thousands of targeted genes affecting drug action impacting potential clinical outcomes." Mr. Crouch noted that the funds are being applied primarily to complete the variance discovery program for all relevant genes currently targeted for drug development and to establish the corresponding diagnostic genotyping assays which will enable clinical associations to be confirmed. In addition, VARIAGENICS will continue to invest in its technology platform and its own discovery research programs in selected therapeutic areas. Mr. Crouch joins VARIAGENICS with more than 18 years of pharmaceutical management and marketing experience, most recently at PAREXEL International. In 1991, Mr. Crouch joined PAREXEL as Vice President, Marketing and Sales, Europe and in 1994, he became Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing and Sales, and was responsible, during his tenure, for increasing net revenues five-fold while establishing formal strategic alliances with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and leading academic institutions. Mr. Crouch is an authority on global pharmaceutical development and marketing, having managed multinational sectors and products in the United States and abroad with leading pharmaceutical companies, including Schering-Plough Inc., Pfizer International, and Johnson & Johnson. Mr. Crouch earned his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and his B.S. in Chemical Engineering, cum laude, from Princeton University. VARIAGENICS, INC. identifies clinically important variances in genes that affect drug action and applies this information to the discovery and development of new pharmaceutical products, diagnostic products, and disease- management practices. Variagenics has a broadly enabling, proprietary technology platform for rapidly discovering normal genetic variations and establishing associations between variant genetic sequences and the clinical efficacy and safety of new pharmaceutical products. Variagenics is a privately held, venture-backed company located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ots Original Text Service: VARIAGENICS, INC. Internet: http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: Taylor Crouch President CEO of VARIAGENICS, INC. Tel.: (USA) 617- 588-5300 or Gretchen Schweitzer Director of Feinstein Kean Partners Inc. Tel.: (USA) 617-577-8110