Geneva, Switzerland, 18 April 2008 – Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (SWX:ADXN) announced that its shareholders approved all the proposals of the board of directors at its 2008 annual general meeting (“2008 AGM”) today. In particular, Addex is pleased to announce that Ray Hill was elected to its board of directors for a three-year term. Dr. Hill will assume his board seat effective May 1, 2008.

Vincent Mutel, CEO, said: “I am pleased that Ray has agreed to join our board. He will bring to the Addex board his internationally recognized scientific expertise and an outstanding knowledge of all aspects of drug development. In addition, he holds deep knowledge of the biotechnology industry, gained through his role in business development at Merck & Co. I am very much looking forward to his participation in shaping the future of Addex.”

From 2002 until he retires on April 30, 2008, Dr. Hill has been Executive Director, Licensing and External Research, Europe for Merck Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc. From 1997-2002 he was Executive Director, Pharmacology at the Neuroscience Research Centre engaged in drug discovery for Neuroscience indications at Merck. After joining Merck/MSD in 1990 Dr. Hill chaired a number of discovery project teams including those responsible for the marketed products Maxalt (for migraine) and Emend (for chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting).

Dr. Hill is currently Visiting Professor in Neuroscience and Mental Health, Imperial College London, Visiting Industrial Professor of Pharmacology in the University of Bristol, Visiting Professor and Chairman of the External Advisory Board in the School of Biological and Health Sciences at the University of Surrey and Visiting Professor in Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Strathclyde. He is a Director and Trustee of the Babraham Institute, Cambridge.  Dr Hill received BPharm and PhD degrees from the University of London. He was a lecturer in Pharmacology at the University of Bristol School of Medicine from 1974 to 1983.

Dr. Hill said: “I look forward to joining the Board of Addex at a most exciting time for the evolution of the company. Tremendous progress has been made recently in progressing innovative drugs into development and many more possibilities are emerging for the exploitation of new biological knowledge in the discovery of further new drugs to treat important human diseases.”

Board Departures & Re-Elections

The terms of office for Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd’s board members Francesco De Rubertis, general partner at Index Ventures, and Alexandra Goll, general partner at TVM Capital, expired at the 2008 AGM and were not renewed.

“Addex thanks Francesco and Alexandra for their invaluable contributions since the company’s incorporation in 2002,” said Vincent Mutel.

Also during the AGM, Antoine Papiernik, managing partner at Sofinnova Partners, and Deborah Harland, general partner at SR One, the venture investment arm of GlaxoSmithKline, were re-elected for a three-year board term.

 
Also at the AGM:

The shareholders of Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd approved:

• the 2007 annual report, the 2007 annual financial statements and the 2007 consolidated financial statements prepared by the board.
• the appropriation of the results, namely, that Addex Pharmaceuticals would carry forward the accumulated loss of CHF8,610,683 for 2007 in full  and authorized the release of CHF182,944 from share premium to create a treasury share reserve.
• granting full discharge to the members of the board of directors and the executive management team for their activities during the business year 2007.
• the re-election of PricewaterhouseCoopers SA, Geneva, as the auditors and group auditors for the 2008 business year.

About Addex

Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd discovers and develops allosteric modulators, an emerging class of small molecule therapeutic agents. Allosteric modulation may offer more sophisticated ways to normalize biological signaling compared to classical orthosteric agonist or antagonist drugs. Allosteric, literally translated from its Greek roots, means “other site”. Thus, allosteric modulators bind receptors at sites that are distinct from the binding sites of classical small molecule orthosteric agonist and antagonist drugs.

The most advanced drug candidate, ADX10059, a negative allosteric modulator (NAM) of metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5), recently demonstrated clinically and statistically significant efficacy in separate Phase IIa clinical trials in gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) patients and migraine headache patients.

The Addex allosteric modulation discovery and development platform has been additionally validated through collaborations with Merck & Co., Inc. and Johnson & Johnson.

Contacts

Chris Maggos
Head of IR & Communications
Addex Pharmaceuticals
   +41 22 884 15 11   
chris.maggos(at)addexpharma.com 

Disclaimer

The foregoing release may contain forward-looking statements that can be identified by terminology such as "not approvable", "continue", "believes", "believe", "will", "remained open to exploring", "would", "could", or similar expressions, or by express or implied discussions regarding Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd, its business, the potential approval of its products by regulatory authorities, or regarding potential future revenues from such products. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd regarding future events, future economic performance or prospects, and, by their very nature, involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, whether known or unknown, and/or any other factor that may materially differ from the plans, objectives, expectations, estimates and intentions expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Such may in particular cause actual results with allosteric modulators of mGluR2, mGluR4, mGluR5, mGluR7 or other therapeutic targets to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that allosteric modulators of mGluR2, mGluR4, mGluR5, mGluR7 will be approved for sale in any market or by any regulatory authority. Nor can there be any guarantee that allosteric modulators of mGluR2, mGluR4, mGluR5, mGluR7 or other therapeutic targets will achieve any particular levels of revenue (if any) in the future. In particular, management's expectations regarding  allosteric modulators of mGluR2, mGluR4, mGluR5, mGluR7 or other therapeutic targets could be affected by, among other things, unexpected actions by our partners, unexpected regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; unexpected clinical trial results, including unexpected new clinical data and unexpected additional analysis of existing clinical data; competition in general; government, industry and general public pricing pressures; the company's ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable laws.