Allostera Pharma Inc.. Appoints Christopher Henney as Chairman of its Board of Directors

MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwire - May 19, 2010) - Allostera Pharma Inc. today announced it has appointed Christopher Henney, PhD, as Chairman of its Board of Directors. Dr. Henney is the co-founder of Immunex (acquired by Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN) in 2002), Icos (acquired by Lilly (NYSE: LLY) in 2007) and Dendreon (Nasdaq: DNDN).

“I am thrilled to have a seasoned biopharmaceutical executive such as Dr. Henney join our company,” commented Mark Kaufmann, President and CEO of Allostera. “Dr. Henney has successfully navigated the formative stages of biotechnology companies, where Allostera finds itself, as well as the later stages, where several of his companies have achieved shareholder exits. His assistance in Allostera’s growth will be invaluable.”

Dr. Henney began his professional career as an academic immunologist. He published over 200 papers in the peer reviewed literature and held professorships at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore and at the University of Washington in Seattle. He held the first chair in Basic Immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. In 1980, together with Steven Gillis, he co-founded Immunex Corporation in Seattle, where he served as Executive Vice President, Scientific Director (Chief Scientific Officer) and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors. Immunex developed two FDA approved drugs, one of which, Enbrel® (etanercept), is one of the leading products by sales produced by the biotechnology industry. In 2002, in one of the largest trade sales in the history of the industry, Immunex was sold to Amgen. In 1989, together with George Rathmann (co-founder of Amgen), Henney co-founded Icos Corporation. He served as a director and Chief Scientific Officer of the company until 1995. Icos developed a leading drug, Cialis® (tadalafil). The company was subsequently acquired by Eli Lilly in 2005 for over $2 billion. In 1995, Henney became the first CEO and Chairman of Dendreon Corporation and began the development of a dendritic cell based therapy for prostate cancer, with a lead product he termed Provenge®. The company became publicly listed on the Nasdaq National Market in 2000 and Henney remained as CEO until 2003 and as Executive Chairman until 2005. Provenge® became the first FDA-approved cell-based immunotherapy treatment in April of this year. Henney has served on many public and privately-held biotechnology company boards, both in the U.S and internationally. He currently serves as Chairman of Oncothyreon Inc. (Nasdaq: ONTY) and Anthera Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: ANTH), and is Vice Chairman of Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: CYCC).

“The technology that Allostera has developed has extraordinary potential if they can continue to prove the broadness of the platform and eventually demonstrate safety and efficacy of Allosteramers™ in humans,” said Dr. Henney. “I am looking forward to helping the company move aggressively forward to validate the science of the platform, advance their lead product into phase I clinical trials and support their business development and financing efforts.”

About Allostera

Allostera Pharma Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company that has developed an entirely new class of drugs, called Allosteramers™. Allosteramers™ have three main properties: 1) they are “allosteric”, meaning they do not bind to the same site as traditional drugs, potentially providing better safety, efficacy and an entirely new set of patentable intellectual properties, 2) they can have predictable and consistent drug properties, and 3) they are designed to be orally available. Using its platform technology called Module X, Allostera has developed a pipeline of several novel Allosteramers™ against different targets primarily focused on inflammation and autoimmunity including APG2305, a drug inhibiting the IL23 receptor, one of the most important targets in the autoimmune disease field. APG2305 has demonstrated oral activity in animal models of autoimmune diseases and the Company expects to submit an investigational new drug (IND) application to begin phase I clinical trials in 2011. Allostera is located in Montreal. For more information, please see www.allostera.com.