SRI International Extends Pharmaceutical Presence to San Diego

MENLO PARK, Calif. - September 17, 2003 - SRI International, an independent research institute, has opened an office in San Diego to offer drug development consulting through PharmaSTART™, a recently announced consortium of leading California universities and research organizations led by SRI. PharmaSTART aims to accelerate the translation of breakthrough new drugs from discovery into clinical use.

The office will be co-located with the University of California, San Diego CONNECT program office. UCSD is a founding PharmaSTART member. UCSD CONNECT is a nonprofit, business community-funded UCSD program that provides critical programs and services to accelerate the growth of technology and life science companies in the San Diego region.

Through this new office, SRI will provide drug development and consultation services to UCSD under the PharmaSTART program and also to local research organizations and small biotech companies. The goal is to turn research investments into new molecular targets and potentially life-saving drugs.

"The new office brings us closer to our colleagues at UCSD, and to the vibrant biosciences community in San Diego,” said Glenn Rice, Ph.D, vice president of SRI's Biosciences Division.  "We hope that our presence in the region will also lead to new collaborations for SRI, such as with other research institutes and private companies," he added.

“I am very pleased to see SRI setting up a presence in San Diego,” said Dr. Fred Cutler, executive director of UCSD CONNECT. “CONNECT's mission of providing the highest quality business assistance to technology companies will certainly be enhanced with this new collaboration. We welcome them to San Diego and look forward to having SRI join us in our busy office.”

In addition to SRI and UCSD, PharmaSTART's founding members include Stanford University; the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF); and the UCSF campus of the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research (QB3) .

SRI's Biosciences Division works with government agencies and commercial pharmaceutical companies, large and small, to provide a broad range of preclinical discovery and development services in a GLP and cGMP environment. In 2002, the division worked with more than 120 commercial clients, and during its 50-year history of preclinical development work, has performed FDA-compliant services on more than 30 marketed drugs and more than 100 drugs in clinical trials. Throughout its history, SRI has had a 100 percent study acceptance rate with the FDA.

For business inquiries about SRI's Biosciences Division, call 866-451-5998, send an email to biosciences@sri.com , or visit http://www.sri.com/biosciences .

For more information about PharmaSTART, call 877-774-6754, send an email to info@pharmastart.org , or visit http://www.pharmastart.org .

About SRI International
Silicon Valley-based SRI International (http://www.sri.com) is one of the world's leading independent research and technology development organizations. Founded as Stanford Research Institute in 1946, SRI has been meeting the strategic needs of clients for 57 years. The nonprofit research institute performs contract research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses and private foundations. In addition to conducting contract R&D, SRI licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships and creates spin-off companies

About UCSD CONNECT
UCSD CONNECT is a globally recognized, university-based nonprofit organization fostering entrepreneurship in the San Diego region by catalyzing, accelerating, and supporting the growth of the most promising technology and life sciences businesses. Focused on assisting growth companies in the San Diego region, CONNECT has been directly involved with over 900 companies since its inception in 1985, helping them raise more than $11 billion in capital. Part of the University of California, San Diego, CONNECT has a dual role in accelerating growth: it assists growth companies in the San Diego region and promotes the commercialization of technology from university-based research. CONNECT's programs also help business service providers, attorneys, accountants, bankers, investors, and marketing professionals with knowledge about emerging technologies and access to new business opportunities. CONNECT is entirely self-supporting and receives no funding from UCSD or the State of California. The organization relies on philanthropy and underwriting to fund its programs and community services. For more information, visit http://www.connect.org .

For more information, please contact:

Molly Holtman
Connecting Point Communications
(415) 442-4028
jkhoury@connectingpointcomm.com

Marty Mallonee
SRI International
(650) 859-2198
marty.mallonee@sri.com