Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Appoints Operations and Technical Director for Diagnostic Division

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BW HealthWire)--March 13, 2001--Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is pleased to announce the appointment of Michael A. Rosen, Ph.D. as Operations and Technical Director for the Company's Diagnostic Division.

Dr. Rosen brings with him over 20 years of experience in the direction of technical personnel and operations in clinical laboratory settings.

Dr. Rosen was most recently Technical Director for the Baltimore, Maryland branch of Quest Diagnostics, Inc. (NYSE: DGX), a company that provides a broad range of clinical laboratory testing services used by physicians in the detection, diagnosis, evaluation, monitoring, and treatment of diseases and other medical conditions.

Prior to that, Dr. Rosen spent nearly 15 years with MetPath, Inc. progressing from Director of Professional Services to Technical Director for RIA/Immunochemistry to spending his last eight years as Technical Director of MetPath Mid-Atlantic in Rockville, Maryland.

In this capacity, Dr. Rosen oversaw several departments including chemistry/autochemistry, special chemistry, clinical toxicology, immunochemistry/serology, hematology, immunohematology, and microbiology.

His responsibilities included the daily direction of technical operations, quality assurance, evaluation and implementation of new testing methods and equipment, trouble shooting, and handling technical and interpretive questions from clients. Dr. Rosen was also responsible for all GLP and research contract work, QA/QC issues, and state, CLIA, and CAP inspections.

Dr. Rosen is a highly trained and experienced Clinical Laboratory Scientist in clinical pathology, with an emphasis on clinical chemistry and immunochemistry. He has expertise in the evaluation of new analytical methods, creating technical support and marketing momentum for sales personnel, the management of technical personnel, and in licensure, regulatory, and legal affairs.

Dr. Rosen received his Ph.D. in Clinical Pathology from the Medical College of Virginia.

"Michael's addition will facilitate our product development and commercialization strategy as well as our projected growth for both our R & D and clinical laboratory efforts," stated Alan H. Deutch, Ph.D., Director of the Company's Diagnostic Division.

The Company's Diagnostic Division focuses on the development, clinical validation, and performance of Company owned and branded esoteric clinical laboratory tests, primarily in the field of oncology, and is complementary to the Company's drug development strategies.

About Panacea Pharmaceuticals

Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. focuses on developing and utilizing protein-based technologies to detect and identify changes associated with and involved in diseases of the central nervous system and cancer such as Alzheimer's disease, brain tumors, transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, and Lewy body diseases such as Parkinson's disease.

Changes in disease-relevant proteins by altered expression, post-translational modification, and functional variation are utilized to develop diagnostic tests and therapeutic agents.