Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Appoints Dr. George Milne as Executive Chairman of the...

Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Appoints Dr. George Milne as Executive Chairman of
the Board of Directors

NEW HAVEN, Conn., July 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Rib-X Pharmaceuticals,
Inc. ("Rib-X" or the "Company"), a development-stage company focused on the
discovery and development of novel antibiotics for the treatment of
antibiotic-resistant infections, announced today that George M. Milne, Jr.,
Ph.D., has been appointed Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors. Dr.
Milne succeeds Harry H. Penner, Jr., who served as Board Chairman since the
Company's first Board meeting in January, 2001.
Dr. Milne, 64, joined Rib-X's Board of Directors in January, 2004, and is
currently a Venture Partner with Radius Ventures, LLC, a health and life
sciences venture capital firm based in New York. Dr. Milne, a Pfizer veteran
of thirty-two years, covered all elements of biomedical innovation, spanning
positions including Corporate Senior Vice President with global responsibility
for Human Health and Veterinary Research and Development and Executive Vice
President for Global Research and Development. During Dr. Milne's tenure from
1993 to 2001 as President for global research and development, Pfizer's
research investment increased five-fold from $493 million to over $2.3
billion; a number of significant products were developed; a substantial
portfolio of collaborations with prominent biotechnology companies was built;
and a broad array of important new pharmaceutical products and discovery
technologies were introduced.
Susan Froshauer, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer at Rib-X,
commented, "George and I have a long history of working together that goes
back to our Pfizer days and I look forward to a renewed collaboration that
will join his experience, that comes from his decades of focus on
pharmaceutical R&D, with those of my team. Rib-X is entering a critical
period, and with the added dimension of George's Executive Chairmanship I am
confident we will realize the clinical fruits of our investments in becoming a
leader in translating a proprietary understanding of the ribosome into
important new drug candidates. Rib-X has had the great fortune to work with a
team of directors that has offered unparalleled guidance as we strive to
develop new classes of antibiotics that are able to address the growing
challenge of multi-drug resistant bacteria. We appreciate the important role
Harry has played in the growth and development of Rib-X. We continue in this
tradition with Dr. George Milne."
"Rib-X is poised to become a leader in the antibiotic space," said Dr.
Milne. "I was attracted to Rib-X by the outstanding quality of their
leadership team, the importance of their mission of discovering and developing
new therapies for life threatening, resistant bacterial infections, and their
proven ability to translate their structure-based drug design platform into
distinctive new antibiotics. These include two compounds in later stage
clinical development -- delafloxacin (RX-3341), for complicated skin and skin
structure infections and radezolid (RX-1741), for community-acquired pneumonia
and uncomplicated skin and skin structure infections as well as two programs
with promising leads including two entirely new families of antibiotics for
serious gram negative infections. Both clinical programs will report phase 2
data in the second half of the year. These compounds are a direct reflection
of the effectiveness of Rib-X's unique three-dimensional insight into the
bacterial ribosome, and its translation into the development of whole families
of newly designed antibiotics that address major medical needs. I look forward
to my continued work with Susan and the Rib-X team as they take the Company
and its programs to the next level."
Dr. Milne also serves on a variety of boards including boards of Charles
River Laboratories, Mettler-Toledo, BioStorage Technologies, Athersys,
Resolvyx, the Mystic Aquarium and the New York Botanical Garden. Dr. Milne
received a B.S. in Chemistry from Yale University and his Ph.D. in Organic
Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
About Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a product-driven small molecule drug
discovery and development company focused on the structure-based design of new
classes of antibiotics. The Company's underlying drug discovery engine
capitalizes on its proprietary high-resolution crystal structure of the
ribosome, which performs an essential role in the fundamental process of
protein synthesis. Many known, commercially valuable antibiotics bind to the
ribosome, including those used to treat both community-acquired and
hospital-acquired pathogens. The Company's integrated research strategy, which
combines state of the art, proprietary computational analysis, X-ray
crystallography, medicinal chemistry, microbiology and biochemistry, allows it
to rapidly synthesize new agents designed to avoid typical antibiotic
resistance mechanisms. Rib-X's iterative intelligent engine has yielded
several distinctive new antibiotic classes. The Company currently has two
programs in human clinical trials, the radezolid (RX-1741) designer
oxazolidinone program as an oral/IV agent to treat serious hospital
Gram-positive infections and the delafloxacin, (RX-3341) program, a next
generation fluoroquinolone, active against a broad spectrum of bacteria,
including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Additionally, the
Company has multiple drug discovery programs. The first of these is an
exciting discovery program that is well on its way toward the identification
of new chemical classes of antibiotics active against multi-drug resistant
Gram negative bacteria in the hospital. The second of these programs is
focused on design and development of an IV and orally active macrolide for
treatment of infections in the nursing home and hospital setting, including
those caused by MRSA and enterococci.
For more information on the ribosome and the Rib-X mission, please visit
the Company website at www.rib-x.com.
SOURCE Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Investors, John Capodanno, +1-212-850-5705, matthew.duch@fd.com, or Media,
Irma Gomez-Dib, +1-212-850-5761, irma.gomez-dib@fd.com, both of FD Life
Sciences for Rib-X Pharmaceuticals