FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PNP Therapeutics, Inc. Receives Funding

PNP Therapeutics, Inc. Closes Series A Preferred Stock Financing

Birmingham, Alabama, October 4, 2001- PNP Therapeutics, Inc., a newly formed biotechnology company announced its first round of venture capital funding in the form of Series A Preferred Stock.

Co-founders Eric J. Sorscher, MD of the University of Alabama at Birmingham ("UAB") and William B. Parker, PhD of Southern Research Institute ("Southern") discovered an approach they believe would be useful in treating various types of cancer. The work they have performed in their laboratories over the past eight years has convinced them that formation of a company would be the best way to ensure this technology is fully developed for therapeutic use. The company is called PNP Therapeutics and derives its name from the enzyme that is the core element of the technology.

The technology is gene-therapy based and consists of three components. The first component is a biological delivery system or vector. The vector is a non-disease producing virus with certain characteristics that when injected into a tumor becomes incorporated into the cancer cells. The second component is the gene itself and the centerpiece of the company’s technology. The gene is incorporated into the vector and after injection into a tumor causes the production of an enzyme called a purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP) within the cancerous cells. The last component of the system is the prodrug, a non-toxic compound that when injected into the blood stream finds its way inside the tumor and is converted by the enzyme into a highly toxic drug that kills the cancer cells.

Sorscher and Parker are co-inventors of several patents jointly owned by UAB Research Foundation and Southern. In addition to the seed capital supplied by Vulcan Medical Ventures, a small venture capital firm in Birmingham, the company secured the worldwide exclusive rights to the patents that protect the technology. Gary Ascani, President of Vulcan Medical Ventures commented, "We are quite impressed with the accomplishments of Drs. Parker and Sorscher and are pleased to be a participant in what we consider a promising new company."

In 1995 and again in 2000, Parker and Sorscher along with colleagues at Southern and Cornell University were awarded grants totaling $8 million from the National Cancer Institute to establish one of only a few National Cooperative Drug Discovery Groups ("NCDDG") in the country. "One of the goals of the NCDDG, in addition to the many scientific objectives, is to encourage the research to move into commercial development," Parker says. "We are well into an advanced preclinical testing phase of this new cancer strategy, and forming PNP Therapeutics will allow an exciting series of discoveries to make their way towards helping patients in the clinic," Sorscher says. "We have established the company in Birmingham and our goal is to grow it and keep it here," says Ascani, who also serves as the company’s CEO.