The News

Professor Peter Van Brummelen and DR. Annick Schwebig join the board of directors of Diatos S.A.

14/12/2005

PARIS, FRANCE – December 14, 2005 – Diatos S.A., a privately held biopharmaceutical company, announced today that Professor Peter van Brummelen, M.D., Ph.D. and Dr. Annick Schwebig, M.D., have been appointed to the company’s Board of Directors as Non-Executive and independent Directors.  Professor van Brummelen runs a global drug development consultancy and Dr. Schwebig is currently General Manager of Actelion Pharmaceuticals, France.

“I am delighted to expand our Board of Directors with Professor Peter van Brummelen and Dr. Annick Schwebig, who both have many years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries,” stated Dr. John Tchelingerian, Ph.D., Diatos S.A. President and Chief Executive Officer.  “Professor van Brummelen has extensive industrial and academic expertise in all phases of drug development and clinical research across a wide range of therapeutic areas including oncology, cardiovascular disease and virology.  In addition to her clinical research and development experience, Dr. Schwebig has held executive management roles, including leading the commercial development of novel pharmaceutical compounds.  Their collective talent will be invaluable to Diatos as we move products through clinical trials to commercialization.”

About Professor Peter van Brummelen
Professor van Brummelen established a consultancy practice for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and venture capital firms, following his retirement as Executive Vice President of Research and Development at Yamanouchi Europe in 2003.  Previously he was Vice President, Clinical Research and Development and Chief Medical Officer at Solvay Pharmaceuticals and he also served as the Worldwide Head of Clinical Pharmacology at Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc.  Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Professor van Brummelen held various academic positions at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands and the University of Basel, Switzerland.  He has (co-)authored more than 200 publications and book chapters.  Professor van Brummelen received his M.D. and Ph. D. from the State University, Leiden.  Professor van Brummelen is also a member of the Board of Directors of Basilea Pharmaceuticals Ltd and BioXell Spa.

About Dr. Schwebig
Since joining Actelion Pharmaceuticals in 2000, Dr. Schwebig created the first European affiliate of Actelion Pharmaceuticals group, acting as General Manager, and has launched two products.  Previously, she spent 20 years at Bristol Myers Squibb (initially Squibb, France), in a series of roles with increasing responsibilities, including Vice-President Medical Affairs, France and lastly Vice-President, Clinical Research & Development, Europe.  Dr. Schwebig is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine, Paris, where she received her M.D., and completed internships in Immuno-allergology and in Internal Medicine at the Hospitals of Paris.  She is also certified in tropical medicine and emergency/catastrophy medical care.

About Diatos
Diatos is a product-driven biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development and commercialization of novel anti-cancer therapies.  The company’s therapeutic candidates DTS-301, a novel paclitaxel formulation and DTS-201, a doxorubicin prodrug, respectively entered Phase II and Phase I clinical trials in 2005.  Diatos is also expanding its product pipeline with new compounds that utilize the Diatos Peptide Vector (DPV) intra-cellular/intra-nuclear VectoCell® delivery technology or its Tumor-Selective Prodrug (TSP) technology as well as with in-licensed clinical-stage cancer therapies.  Diatos has entered into research collaboration agreements with several European and US biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies for the use of Vectocell® technology.

Founded in 1999 as a spin-off from Institut Pasteur, Diatos has raised 33 million Euros to date from Sofinnova Partners (France), GIMV (Belgium), InterWest Partners (USA), Crédit Agricole Private Equity (France), AGF Private Equity (France), Innoven Partenaires (France), Société Générale Asset Management (France), NIF Ventures (Japan), Biotech Fund Flanders (Belgium), Sopartec (Belgium) and Institut Pasteur (France).  Diatos has 44 employees in total, most of them located at the Paris headquarters, and also at its R & D subsidiary in Leuven, Belgium (Diatos N.V., 8 employees) and in the USA, where its Chief Business Officer is based (Diatos USA, Inc - California). 

Contact :
Dr. John Tchelingerian, Ph.D., President & CEO
Diatos S.A.
c/o Astrid Zamansky-Heinesch, Assistant to General Management
+33-1-53-80-93-62 jtchelingerian@diatos.com