Centre for Drug Research and Development Forms Pact With Pfizer Inc.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Feb 21, 2013) - CDRD Ventures Inc. (CVI), the commercialization vehicle of The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD), and Pfizer Inc. today announced a strategic collaboration designed to provide new resources to advance Canada''s most innovative and therapeutically promising health technologies towards commercialization.

Through this collaboration, Pfizer will have the opportunity to support mutually-selected CVI R&D projects with the goal of commercializing the programs and resulting intellectual property. This new collaboration follows previous investments by Pfizer Canada Inc. into CDRD whereby a Pfizer-CDRD Innovation Fund was first established in 2007 to support innovative projects with therapeutic potential stemming from academic discovery. This new CVI partnership is an extension to the original CDRD relationship, and together, the two represent a continuum of support for health research projects, whether they are very early projects in CDRD or more mature projects that have been advanced into CVI.

Natalie Dakers, President and CEO of CVI, commented, "Pfizer was our pioneering industry partner making critical early investments in CDRD, thus enabling its evolution to become Canada''s national drug development and commercialization centre. By now extending Pfizer''s partnership into CVI (its third such industry partnership), we have further validated the CDRD/CVI model, and built a continuous and robust means to support the most exciting new health technologies through their full development cycle."

"We are encouraged by the B.C.''s government''s openness to work collaboratively with our industry, and coupled with the great scientific leadership coming from the province, it has resulted in today''s collaboration announcement," said John Helou, President, Pfizer Canada. "CDRD Ventures Inc. builds on the strength of hundreds of researchers and applies business discipline and scientific rigor to select promising technologies for development, giving Canada and British Columbia an edge towards a prosperous knowledge-based economy which is critical to ensuring Canada''s global competitiveness."

"At Pfizer we know that emerging science is happening at a rapid pace in innovation clusters throughout the world," said Uwe Schoenbeck, Chief Scientific Officer, External R&D Innovation at Pfizer. "This partnership with CDRD Ventures Inc is an important example of our focus on partnering globally to identify and advance potential therapies that can significantly improve patient lives."

The role of CDRD is to transform promising health research discoveries into viable commercial opportunities. CVI then in turn, transforms those opportunities into real and measurable value, thus providing a self-sustainability mechanism for CDRD, and providing long-term support for the commercialization of Canadian health research. This innovative partnership will support those efforts by providing the necessary funding to pursue the continued commercialization of innovative products for patients.

About CDRD Ventures Inc. (CVI)

CVI is the commercialization vehicle of The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD). With a first right to negotiate for any of the technologies developed at CDRD, CVI has a continuous and unparalleled pipeline of the most innovative and commercially-promising pre-validated and thus de-risked technologies in Canada. From CDRD''s drug development projects and/or external opportunities, CVI licenses select promising technologies with the goal to further advance them to a stage where they can attract licensing partners, form the foundation for a new spin-off company, or secure the investment needed for clinical development. www.cdrdventures.com

About The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD)

CDRD is Canada''s fully-integrated national drug development and commercialization centre, providing expertise and infrastructure to enable researchers from leading health research institutions to advance promising early-stage drug candidates. CDRD''s mandate is to de-risk discoveries stemming from publicly-funded health research and transform them into viable investment opportunities for the private sector - thus successfully bridging the commercialization gap between academia and industry. CDRD is the only fully-integrated centre of its kind in the country - and one of a handful in the world - with the full expertise and infrastructure to source, evaluate, develop and commercialize both small molecule and biologic innovative technologies in virtually any therapeutic area. Canada''s Networks of Centres of Excellence Program has recognized CDRD as a Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR). www.cdrd.ca

Contact:

Barry Gee

Director, Communications

CDRD Ventures Inc. (CVI) & The Centre for

Drug Research and Development (CDRD)

bgee@cdrd.ca

604-827-1223

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