press release archive

Rigel Announces $31.5 Million Offering of Common Stock

South San Francisco, CA - January 17, 2002

Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: RIGL) today announced it has entered into an agreement with Robertson Stephens, as placement agent, providing for the placement of newly-issued shares of Rigel's common stock. Robertson Stephens has received commitments from a select group of existing and new investors to purchase 7.0 million shares of Rigel's common stock at a price of $4.50 per share. The shares of common stock are being offered through a prospectus supplement pursuant to the company's effective shelf registration statement. The sale of all of the 7.0 million shares is expected to raise net proceeds of approximately $29.4 million, after payment by Rigel of placement agent fees and offering expenses.

A registration statement relating to these securities was filed with and has been declared effective by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies of the prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus related to the offering may be obtained from Robertson Stephens, 555 California Street, Suite 2600, San Francisco, California 94104.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state. Any offer, if at all, will be made only by means of a prospectus, including a prospectus supplement, forming a part of the effective registration statement.

Rigel Pharmaceuticals (www.rigel.com) is a drug discovery and development company that uses advanced functional genomics tools to discover novel drug targets that can be used to develop orally administered small molecule drugs. Rigel's technology is designed to identify molecules that play an important role in regulating a human cell's response to disease by testing a very large number of proteins in a very large number of cells to determine which proteins will change the cell's response to the disease. Rigel expects to begin clinical trials during 2002 with one or more new drug candidates identified from the current 10 product development programs in the areas of asthma/allergy, autoimmunity, transplant rejection, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, chronic bronchitis, cancerous tumor growth and hepatitis C. Rigel has collaborations with Pfizer Inc., Cell Genesys, Inc., Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, L.L.C. and Novartis Pharma A.G. Rigel is based in South San Francisco, California.