Atugen Biotechnology GmbH Founds Subsidiary in Boulder,

Colorado USA Berlin (PROTEXT) - Atugen Biotechnology, GmbH (Atugen), founded in 1998 in Berlin, Germany as a new target discovery and validation company, announces the official foundation of its North American research center as a subsidiary in Boulder, Colorado: Atugen USA, Inc. (http://www.atugen.com). Atugen USA is starting its research activities with 16 employees who were formerly employed by Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (RPI) and had serviced ongoing target discovery and validation corporate partnerships. Last year when Atugen was spun out of RPI, it was agreed that along with the target discovery and validation technology, the research work on existing collaborations would be transferred to Atugen. The US subsidiary in Boulder was founded primarily to have the same scientific group continue to serve the existing collaborations with Berlex, Roche BioSciences, Glaxo Wellcome, Parke-Davis and Chiron and to serve other future customers in the American market. The US subsidiary is expected to be self sustaining as a result of revenues from its collaborations. Atugen has named Drs. Ralph E. Christoffersen and Michael Steinmetz to the Board of Directors for Atugen USA and has additionally named Dr. Klaus Giese as the President and Dr. Jorg Potzch as the Secretary and Treasurer. Director of Research at Atugen USA is Dr. James D. Thompson. "Proximity to the customers is very important," said Michael Steinmetz, acting CEO of Atugen and Director of Atugen USA. "Our customer is the international pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, so it is important for us to have a presence on both continents." Customers from the European continent will be served primarily by the headquarters of Atugen in Berlin. Atugen Biotechnology, GmbH is an integrated genomics company, headquartered in Berlin, Germany. Atugen's mission is to provide its pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners with cost- effective, high throughput target analysis, plus in vitro and in vivo target discovery and validation to accelerate the drug development process. ots Original Text Service: Atugen Biotechnology, GmbH Internet: http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: Dr. Michael Steinmetz, Acting CEO Tel.: (in the USA) 617-225- 7054, or Dr. Jorg Potzch, VP Administration, Tel.: (in Germany) (0)30-9489-2700, both of Atugen Biotechnology, GmbH, or Alene Holzman, VP, Corporate Development Tel.: (in the USA) 303-449- 6500 of Atugen USA, Inc. Web site: http://www.atugen.com Subscribers please note that material bearing the slug "PROTEXT" is not part of CTK's news service and is not to be published under the "CTK" slug. Protext is a commercial service providing distribution of press releases from clients, who are identified in the text of Protext reports and who bear full responsibility for their contents. PROTEXT