Vernalis PLC and Servier Achieve Research Milestone in 2nd Oncology Collaboration

October 5, 2010 -- Vernalis plc, a development stage pharmaceutical company with a broad pipeline of clinical and early stage programmes and Servier, second largest privately-owned pharmaceutical company worldwide, today announce they have achieved a research milestone in their three year oncology drug discovery collaboration initiated in May 2009. As a result, Vernalis will receive a payment of €0.75m from Servier in recognition of the achievement of desired potency and selectivity criteria in the programme.

Under the terms of the collaboration, which uses Vernalis’ proprietary fragment and structure-based drug discovery platform, Vernalis receives fees and research milestones and a share in the downstream success of the product in the form of further milestones and royalties on sales. These terms are not disclosed. This is the second collaboration between Vernalis and Servier, the first collaboration is focused on developing two promising oncology targets involved in protein-protein interactions.

Ian Garland, CEO of Vernalis commented: “Achieving this milestone demonstrates the strength of our fragment and structure-based drug discovery platforms and I look forward to continued success in our collaboration with Servier”.

Emmanuel Canet, MD, PhD, President Servier Research and Development, added: “We are very satisfied with this collaboration reaching an important milestone on a truly innovative oncology target. This is a step further in our aim to finalise the discovery of innovative compounds with potential use in therapeutic indications with high unmet medical need. Cancer represents a major cause of mortality worldwide and Servier is committed to providing patients with novel therapeutic approaches for treating this devastating disease”

Enquiries:

Vernalis Contacts Ian Garland, Chief Executive Officer +44 (0) 118 989 9360 David Mackney, Chief Financial Officer

Brunswick Group Jon Coles +44 (0) 20 7404 5959 Justine McIlroy

Taylor Rafferty Rob Newman +44 (0) 20 7614 2900 Faisal Kanth

About Servier

Servier is the leading independent French pharmaceutical company, established in 1954 by its founder, Jacques Servier, M.D., Pharm.D. The group is established in 140 countries and 85% of Servier products are prescribed outside of France. Sales turnover in 2009 reached 3.6 billion euros. More than 25% of Servier's turnover is invested in Research and Development. The Servier Group counts 19 Internationals Centers of Therapeutic Research, and its principal therapeutic research orientations are cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, neuropsychiatric disorders, cancer, and osteoarticular diseases. More information is available at: http://www.servier.com/

About Vernalis

Vernalis is a development stage pharmaceutical company with significant expertise in taking promising product candidates along a commercially-focused path to market. The Group has one marketed product, frovatriptan for the acute treatment of migraine, and ten candidates in development, seven of which are designated priority programmes. Five of these priority programmes are currently unpartnered and three are partnered. Pipeline programmes are derived from both our own research activities where we have significant expertise in fragment and structure based drug discovery, as well as from collaborations. Our technologies, capabilities and products are endorsed by collaborations with Biogen Idec, Chiesi, Endo, GSK, Menarini, Novartis and Servier.