ARROW THERAPEUTICS RAISES MAJOR PART OF VENTURE CAPITAL FUNDING.

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LONDON, Oct. 1 PRNewswire-AsiaNet - Arrow Therapeutics, the London based anti-infectives drug discovery company, announced today that it has raised more than 21M pounds sterling in the first close of its Series B funding round. The second stage of funding in this round is anticipated to close by the end of 2003, for an expected total of 25M pounds.

Atlas Venture, who invests in life sciences companies in Europe and the US, is leading the round. Other new investors in this round are Tokyo-based NIF and ITX and Scottish Widows Investment Partnership of the UK. Previous investors GIMV, Alta Partners, 3i Group, TVM, Unibio and NVM have all contributed fully to the new round. Tim Wilson, Senior Principal, of Atlas Venture and Alexandra Goll, General Partner of TVM, will join the company's Board of Directors.

"Attracting this level of funding is a huge achievement under such adverse market conditions, especially coming from blue chip VC's," said Ken Powell, Chief Executive Officer of Arrow Therapeutics. "Drug discovery produces high returns, albeit for high risk. However, there is no doubt that the success rate of anti-infectives in the clinical stages is considerably higher than the industry average. I believe that if we remain focused and continue to develop at our current rate Arrow will be an extremely attractive investment opportunity at IPO."

The investment will fund the company's operations, R&D and marketing efforts. Arrow remains committed to in-house research in novel antibiotics and is developing new antiviral projects. This will provide a steady flow of products into the pipeline and ensure a broad portfolio of drug candidates for future development and partnering. The team will continue to build on their development expertise as they move into the clinical phases. In the near term this will involve advancing the RSV project (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) into Phase II and the Hepatitis C project into preclinical trials, both during 2004. One or more antibiotic projects are also expected to enter preclinical studies during 2004.

"We are investing in Arrow because it has a promising product pipeline and an experienced management team," said Tim Wilson, Senior Principal of Atlas Venture. "The infectious disease arena has also been a fruitful one for biotechnology ...