Geneva, Switzerland, 18 April 2008 – Addex Pharmaceuticals (SWX:ADXN) is pleased to announce the appointment of Laurent Massuyeau as head of business development.

Mr. Massuyeau joins Addex from Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc., where he was executive director of European commercial operations. He brings to Addex 7 years of big pharma business development experience as well as 10 years of sales and marketing experience.

Vincent Mutel, CEO, said, “Laurent’s expertise and network gained through his work in the US and Europe will strengthen our growing business development efforts and are particularly valuable for our expansion plans.”

Immediately prior to joining Addex Mr. Massuyeau was executive director of European commercial operations at Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc. From 2004-2006 he was business unit director for Lilly, France, a division of Eli Lilly & Co., leading groups responsible for strategy, business development, alliance management, sales and marketing services as well as information technology. From 2002-2004 Mr. Massuyeau was manager corporate strategy & business development at Lilly’s headquarters in Indianapolis. From 2000-2001, Mr. Massuyeau was sales manager for Lilly for the New England area in the U.S. Prior to that, beginning in 1995, he held a succession of positions in Europe for Lilly. From 1992-1995 he worked for animal health company Virbac Laboratories Ltd., managing sales in Europe and Asia. Mr. Massuyeau holds an MBA from INSEAD, graduated from Nantes Veterinary School as doctor of veterinary medicine, and holds a masters degree in biochemistry from University of Medicine Paris V.

“I am excited to join such a rapidly growing dynamic company and look forward to the many exciting challenges ahead,” said Massuyeau.

About Addex

Addex Pharmaceuticals discovers and develops allosteric modulators, an emerging class of small molecule therapeutic agents. Allosteric modulation may offer more sophisticated ways to normalize biological signaling compared to classical orthosteric agonist or antagonist drugs. Allosteric, literally translated from its Greek roots, means: other site. Thus, allosteric modulators bind receptors at sites that are distinct from the binding sites of classical small molecule orthosteric agonist and antagonist drugs.

The most advanced drug candidate, ADX10059, a negative allosteric modulator (NAM) of metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5), recently demonstrated clinically and statistically significant efficacy in separate Phase IIa clinical trials in gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) patients and migraine headache patients.

The Addex allosteric modulation discovery and development platform has been additionally validated through collaborations with Merck & Co., Inc. and Johnson & Johnson.

Contacts

Chris Maggos
Head of IR & Communications
Addex Pharmaceuticals
 +41 22 884 15 11    
chris.maggos(at)addexpharma.com
 

Disclaimer

The foregoing release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by terminology such as "not approvable", "continue", "believes", "believe", "will", "remained open to exploring", "would", "could", or similar expressions, or by express or implied discussions regarding Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd, its business, the potential approval of its products by regulatory authorities, or regarding potential future revenues from such products. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results with allosteric modulators of mGluR4, mGluR2, mGluR5 or other therapeutic targets to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that allosteric modulators of mGluR4, mGluR2 or mGluR5 will be approved for sale in any market or by any regulatory authority. Nor can there be any guarantee that allosteric modulators of mGluR4, mGluR2, mGluR5 or other therapeutic targets will achieve any particular levels of revenue (if any) in the future. In particular, management's expectations regarding  allosteric modulators of mGluR4, mGluR2, mGluR5 or other therapeutic targets could be affected by, among other things, unexpected actions by our partners, unexpected regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; unexpected clinical trial results, including unexpected new clinical data and unexpected additional analysis of existing clinical data; competition in general; government, industry and general public pricing pressures; the company's ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Addex Pharmaceuticals is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.