press release archive

Rigel Pharmaceuticals to Present at Lehman Brothers Healthcare Conference

South San Francisco, Calif., - February 26, 2002

Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: RIGL) today announced that James Gower, Chairman and CEO, will present at the Lehman Brothers Healthcare Conference in Orlando, Florida on Thursday, February 28 at 11:15am EST. To listen to Mr. Gower’s presentation, dial 800-553-2720 and enter access code 1561388. International callers dial 303-713-7920.

A replay of the call will be available the following day by dialing 800-625-5288. International callers dial 303-804-1855. The access code is 1561388.

About Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
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 ten current 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.

This press release contains "forward-looking" statements, including statements related to the Company's plans to commence clinical trials in 2002. Any statements contained in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Words such as "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "will" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. There are a number of important factors that could cause the results of the Company to differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements, including the risks detailed from time to time in the Company's SEC reports, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2000, as amended, and its most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements.