Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Announces Closing of Initial Round of Financing

Company Announces Initiation of Series A Offering

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BW HealthWire)--Aug. 3, 2000--Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is pleased to announce the closing of its initial round of financing and the initiation of its Series A offering.

Investments to date have supported the establishment of Research and Development as well as commercial laboratory spaces, the in-licensing of several technologies, patent expenses, and the maintenance of the Company's Collaborative Research Agreements with Brown University/Rhode Island Hospital, Case Western Reserve University, and Loyola Medical School.

The Company has prepared a Private Placement Memorandum for the Series A round of financing with Brobeck, Phleger, & Harrison LLP, the Company's corporate counsel in Washington, D.C.

The proceeds from the Series A will be used for the further development of the Company's diagnostic testing platform for brain, pancreatic, liver, colorectal, and other cancers, which it intends to provide as a service in a CLIA-certified reference laboratory setting by early next year. The testing menu will eventually include several other neurological disease specialty tests.

The financing will also enable Panacea to continue pre-clinical studies on several of its lead therapeutic candidates such as PAN-346 for brain tumors and PAN-408 for Lewy body diseases such as Parkinson's disease. The Company will continue to screen compounds using a newly developed tumor invasiveness model, an alpha-synuclein/Parkinson's disease model, and cell cycle and oxidative stress models for Alzheimer's disease.

"We are delighted that our financing efforts have remained on schedule," stated James M. Matthew, M.B.A., C.P.A., Chief Financial Officer of Panacea. "Due to the overwhelming interest we've received from potential partners and investors, we anticipate closing our Series A quickly."

In related Company news, Panacea's President and CEO, Hossein A. Ghanbari, Ph.D., was interviewed by WallStreetReporter.com. The interview can be seen at www.PanaceaPharma.com.

WallStreetReporter.com is the premier information source for professional investors seeking successful new investment ideas. WSR interviews CEO's of leading companies that are making important news in their industry. The in-depth interviews are geared towards sophisticated investors who demand an unbiased, unscripted, first-hand perspective that enables informed investment decisions. WSR also publishes the periodical Wall Street Reporter Magazine, which is read monthly by over 25,000 stockbrokers, portfolio managers, analysts, and investors.

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 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.

More information is available at www.PanaceaPharma.com, a web site developed by Ei Web Promotion, a division of eiCommunications.com, Inc. (www.eiCommunications.com), which offers integrated communications and web development solutions for the Information Age.

With more than 600 attorneys involved in virtually every specialty area of the law, Brobeck, Phleger, & Harrison LLP provides a single resource for dealing with the host of interrelated legal issues facing businesses today. Brobeck represents more than 2,000 companies in the technology, life sciences, medical devices, health care, financial services, venture capital and investment banking, real estate, and chemical/oil/gas/energy industries. Brobeck also participates in a network of international law firms to provide clients with the reach and resources for handling legal and business issues abroad. More information is available at www.Brobeck.com.