PARIS and GAITHERSBURG, Maryland, July 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ExonHit Therapeutics (ALTERNEXT-NYSE EURONEXT : ALEHT ; ISIN : FR0004054427), a drug and diagnostic company, today announced its presence at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease (ICAD 2008) taking place in Chicago (Illinois), July 26 to 31.

On this occasion, ExonHit will reveal several posters and participate in an oral presentation, entitled "EHT 0202: A Neuroprotective And Procognitive Alpha-secretase Stimulator Targeted Towards Alzheimer Disease Therapy", lead by Matthew Pando, Ph.D., Executive Vice President - Therapeutics of ExonHit.

"We're particularly delighted to take part in this international conference and we're proud to present all of our therapeutic developments and diagnostic innovations to the major experts and researchers in the neurodegenerative diseases. Based on its unique technological platform of alternative splicing, ExonHit has been working for years on building an efficient Alzheimer's franchise. It focuses on the development of a new generation of blood diagnostic tests but also on the discovery of innovative therapeutic solutions in a area where ExonHit has to line up among the top leading companies", has declared Philippe Rousseau, Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Financial Officer of ExonHit.

On the basis of several unique proprietary technologies of analysis of transcripts with alternative splicing, ExonHit built indeed a solid portfolio of both therapeutic and diagnostic products.

Nowadays, ExonHit is mostly developing two fully proprietary programs in Alzheimer's disease. The first one, relative to the EHT 0202 compound, is in fact on phase II of clinical trials. Based on a new action mechanism EHT 0202 redirects the processing of APP (Amyloid Precursor Protein), which plays a pivotal role in the evolution of Alzheimer's disease, at the expense of the beta amyloid peptide (AأŽآ). EHT 0202 could represent a major therapeutic breakthrough. The second program, EHT 206, is in pre-clinical stage and focuses on the development of new chemical entities aiming at inhibiting the formation of senile plaques, largely composed of aggregated beta amyloid peptides (Ass). These plaques, responsible for the neurons' death, play a main role in the loss of cognitive functions with patients suffering from the Alzheimer's disease.

In the field of blood-based Alzheimer's disease test, ExonHit presently leads several studies as part of the EHTDx21 project. Theses studies intend to confirm, on a new set of patients, the ability of the test to isolate Alzheimer patients from healthy individuals who show no signs of dementia. They also aim at measuring the ability of this test to differentiate the Alzheimer's dementia from other forms of dementias. ExonHit expects to provide in 2009 the pharmaceutical industry with its first version of the EHTDx21 test and so become one of the first worldwide firms to offer a blood diagnostic test devoted to this pathology.

ICAD data highlights include : Therapeutics
Poster session: "EHT 0202, An Alpha-secretase Stimulator Active Against Amyloid-Beta Accumulation And Neurotoxicity That Improves Attention And Cognition"

Date/Time : Monday Jul 28, 2008 12:30 PM - 3:00 PM

Poster session: "Development Of A Screening Platform For The Identification Of New Rac1/Rac1b Inhibitors Active In The Prevention Of Amyloid-beta Production"

Date/Time : Monday Jul 28, 2008 12:30 PM - 3:00 PM

Oral presentation: "EHT0202: A Neuroprotective And Procognitive Alpha-secretase Stimulator Targeted Towards Alzheimer Disease Therapy"

Date/Time : Tuesday Jul 29, 2008 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM in the Therapeutic Strategies Session

Diagnostics Poster for Dx21: "Discovery Of Blood Gene Expression Biomarkers In Alzheimer's Disease Using The Human Genome-wide Splicearray",

Date/Time : Sunday Jul 27, 2008 12:30 PM - 3:00 PM

About ICAD : The premier Alzheimer conference. As a part of the Alzheimer's Association research program, this international conference serves as a catalyst for generating new knowledge about dementia and fostering a vital, collegial research community. This meeting will bring together more than 5,000 researchers, physicians and care providers from 60 countries - the largest group of international leaders in Alzheimer research and care ever convened. ICAD boasts more than 2,000 sessions. Plenary, symposia, oral and poster session topics include: Genetics, epidemiology and risk factors, Cellular and animal models, Neuropathology of amyloid, lipid biochemistry, Early detection and diagnosis, neuroimaging and biomarkers, Current interventions and future therapies... (http://www.alz.org/icad/overview.asp)

About ExonHit Therapeutics : ExonHit Therapeutics is the world's leader in the analysis of alternative RNA splicing, a process which when deregulated plays a key role in the onset of various diseases.

ExonHit has a multi-component commercial strategy to capture the maximum value from its leadership in alternative splicing. The Company is already generating revenues from a new generation of microarrays, SpliceArrayTM family of products that enable life science researchers to detect crucial disease-associated information. These products are marketed worldwide in conjunction with Agilent and Affymetrix.

In the field of diagnostics, ExonHit has a major collaboration with bioMerieux to develop completely novel predictive blood-based cancer diagnostics, which could play a key role in improving the treatment of breast cancer and other major cancers and develops its own projects for the detection of other chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's disease or atherosclerosis.

In parallel, ExonHit is developing its own therapeutic pipeline in the field of neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. The Company has advanced drug candidates into clinical trials and is evaluating several promising pre-clinical compounds. ExonHit also has a strategic partnership with Allergan, to discover and develop new therapeutics in the areas of pain, neurological diseases and ophthalmology. This collaboration provides on-going research funding to ExonHit.

Founded in 1997, ExonHit is headquartered in Paris, France and has a U.S. facility in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The Company is listed on Alternext of Euronext Paris (ticker: ALEHT; ISIN: FR0004054427) since November 17, 2005.

This press release may be drafted in the French and English languages. In an event of differences between the texts, the French language version shall prevail.