PsychoGenics Obtains Funding For Their High Throughput CNS Drug Discovery Platform

Hawthorne, NY August 28, 2002, PsychoGenics Inc. announced today that its application to the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health for a fast-track (Phase I and II) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, totaling $1,062,158, has been approved. The grant will help support the further development of SmartCubeTM, the first proprietary high-throughput system for testing behavior and physiology in live animals (in vivo). SmartCubeTM combines the company's expertise in behavioral pharmacology with innovations in robotics, computer vision and bioinformatics, bringing massively parallel data acquisition and analysis to the study of behavior and a new approach to central nervous system (CNS) drug discovery.

Evaluation of CNS drug candidates in vivo currently depends on traditional behavioral tests. Such tests are conducted primarily by a scientist subjectively observing one animal at time; the tests are time-intensive and are semi-automated at best. SmartCubeTM will eliminate much of the human subjectivity and reduce experimental error by fully automating testing, data capture, outlier detection, and data analysis with novel hardware, and state-of-the-art computerized video capture software. In combination with the newly developed hardware and its associated computer vision software, the SmartCubeTM system includes SmartBaseTM, a pharmacological database that will include the behavioral and physiological profiles or signatures for a wide range of known therapeutic drugs for the treatment of CNS disorders. PsychoGenics will generate signatures for test compounds and, using sophisticated bioinformatic algorithms, compare them to the signatures in SmartBaseTM, to determine the therapeutic potential of novel compounds and find new indications for existing drugs and previously tested compounds.

"SmartCubeTM represents a qualitative leap over the slow and labor-intensive testing methods used by today's behavioral scientists. It will dramatically improve the quality, objectivity, and speed of observations and thus of results", said Dani Bruner, Ph.D., Vice President, Behavioral R&D.

Commenting on PsychoGenics' business strategy, Emer Leahy, Ph.D., President and CEO said, "SmartCubeTM offers companies a new approach to drug discovery. We intend to partner with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including many of the dozens with whom we have client relationships. We expect to screen and evaluate their compounds and to share in the revenues of the drug discoveries that will emerge from these partnerships. PsychoGenics will do the testing in return for an interest in future drug revenues. We intend to pursue additional corporate relationships aggressively".

PsychoGenics Inc., a privately held biotechnology company, is developing in vivo models and tests for drug discovery in CNS disorders. The Company also offers in vivo testing services in rats and mice, including most standard behavioral assays, telemetry, and microdialysis, as well as a variety of neuroanatomical techniques and in situ hybridization.