The Gavriel Meir Trust Adds $450,000 to Extend Existing Collaboration between Charley's...

The Gavriel Meir Trust Adds $450,000 to Extend Existing Collaboration between Charley's Fund/Nash Avery Foundation and CombinatoRx to Continue Developing Novel Agents for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

$450,000 To Fund Drug Discovery and Product Development Program

- Novel Mechanism Combination Pharmaceuticals to Treat
Debilitating Muscle Wasting Disease with 100% Mortality Rate -
SOUTH EGREMONT, Mass.--(Business Wire)--
Charley's Fund, Nash Avery Foundation and The Gavriel Meir Trust
all non-profit organizations founded to support Duchenne muscular
dystrophy (DMD) research, today announced an extension to the existing
collaborative agreement between CombinatoRx, Incorporated, Charley's
Fund and the Nash Avery Foundation to identify novel disease-modifying
multi-targeted treatments for DMD, the most common form of muscular
dystrophy.

"DMD is a progressive and fatal muscle-wasting disease and we are
extremely excited to contribute to CombinatoRx and their unique
approach to drug development," said Doron Rosenfeld, Founder of the
Gavriel Meir Trust. "We hope that our contribution will enable
CombinatoRx to speed up and further facilitate their program in order
to identify combinations of drugs which will then soon be available
for patients with DMD."

"We are pleased to extend and continue our work in the area of
DMD, these research funds will further leverage our combination High
Throughput Screening (cHTS(TM)) technology to discover novel
multi-target therapeutics to address DMD, a disease with critically
high unmet medical need," commented Alexis Borisy, President and Chief
Executive Officer of CombinatoRx. "This collaboration continues to
build our R&D capability in the emerging degenerative disease space
where there is significant opportunity to create important medicines."

The new collaboration will focus on the use of the CombinatoRx
cHTS(TM) drug discovery technology to identify disease-modifying
multi-targeted DMD therapeutic candidates. CombinatoRx will be
screening for synergistic activity in both DMD-relevant in vitro
assays and assays that have broadly implicated mechanisms beyond DMD.
Under this new agreement, CombinatoRx receives a further $450.000 in
research funding, in addition to the $3,000.000 already pledged by
Charley's Fund and Nash Avery Foundation, owns new intellectual
property generated during the collaboration and has full worldwide
commercialization rights to all product candidates.

About Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

DMD is the most common fatal genetic disorder to affect children
around the world. Children with DMD cannot produce dystrophin, a
protein necessary for muscle strength and function. As a result, every
skeletal muscle in the body deteriorates. There is no cure or
effective treatment for DMD. Approximately one in 3,500 boys is born
with DMD, and an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 children are afflicted in
the United States alone.

About the Gavriel Meir Trust

The Gavriel Meir Trust is a not-for-profit foundation that is
dedicated to financially support various avenues of research aimed at
identification of a treatment and/or cure for children with Duchenne
muscular dystrophy. The Trust was founded in May of 2007 by Kerry and
Doron Rosenfeld, whose son Gavriel was diagnosed with DMD in 2006 and
is currently supporting a variety of promising research projects in
Europe and now in the United States. For more information about the
Gavriel Meir Trust, visit www.thegmtrust.org.

About Charley's Fund

Charley's Fund is a not-for-profit foundation that finances
therapeutics development for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The
foundation's mission is to expedite a treatment or cure in time to
help this generation of children who suffer from DMD. Charley's Fund
targets translational research--research that moves science from the
lab into human clinical trials. The 501(c)(3) public charity was
co-founded in 2004 by Benjamin Seckler, M.D. and Tracy Kramer Seckler,
whose 8-year-old son Charley has Duchenne muscular dystrophy. To learn
more about Charley's Fund, visit www.charleysfund.org.

About Nash Avery Foundation

The Nash Avery Foundation is a not-for-profit private foundation
that is focused on financially supporting programs that will slow and
eventually stop Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Nash Avery Foundation was
founded by Angela and Tom Wicka after their son Nash was diagnosed
with DMD. The Foundation believes that the solution in stopping this
disease will come from a combination of well funded science and
getting talented people focused on this disease.

About CombinatoRx

CombinatoRx, Incorporated (CRXX) is pioneering the new field of
synergistic combination pharmaceuticals and has a broad product
portfolio in phase 2 clinical development. Going beyond traditional
combinations, CombinatoRx creates product candidates with novel
mechanisms of action striking at the biological complexities of human
disease. The lead programs in the CombinatoRx portfolio are advancing
into later stage clinical trials. This portfolio is internally
generated from the CombinatoRx proprietary drug discovery technology
which provides a renewable and previously untapped source of novel
drug candidates. The Company was founded in 2000 and is located in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. To learn more about CombinatoRx please visit
www.combinatorx.com.

The Gavriel Meir Trust
Doron Rosenfeld, +44 7795 290 101
Founder & Trustee
info@thegmtrust.org
or
Charley's Fund
Tracy Seckler, 413-528-5744
info@charleysfund.org
or
Nash Avery Foundation
Tom C. Wicka
President and Founder
tom.wicka@iwco.com

Copyright Business Wire 2008