Millennium and Bayer industrializing drug discovery process through ongoing successful researc...( More Than 70 disease-relevant ...)

More Than 70 disease-relevant validated drug targets moving in to or beyond screening in first two years of collaboration

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and LEVERKUSEN, Germany, October 24, 2000 --Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: MLNM) and Bayer AG today announced that they are currently moving more than 70 disease-relevant validated drug targets into high-throughput screening or lead identification in the first two years of their five-year research alliance. The alliance achieved these exceptional advances through joint efforts. The two companies collaborated to streamline the drug discovery process with Millennium industrializing the rapid identification, characterization and validation of target proteins and Bayer conducting large-scale high-throughput screening. This innovative approach to target discovery allows for the categorization of genes with disease relevance and is a key step in the process to enhance the productivity of drug discovery.

The alliance is centered on genomics research that identifies the composition and function of thousands of genes which carry instructions to make proteins the body needs to function. By integrating large-scale genetics, genomics, automation, informatics and drug discovery technologies, Millennium can rapidly search for disease-relevant targets that are promising for drug development. This resulting drug discovery platform, which effectively meets the needs of the research alliance with Bayer, serves all of Millenniums research programs, both internal and partnered, and contributes validated targets to the Companys own drug discovery pipeline.

With the aid of Bayers high-throughput robotic screening technology, the selected targets are incorporated into test systems to search for compounds that show promise for drug development. This screening process can test more than 200,000 such compounds daily.

The progress of the Millennium and Bayer alliance in its first tw
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Contact: Maureen Suda, Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc.
617-551-2959
Porter Novelli
23-Oct-2000