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Rigel Announces First Quarter 2002 Financial Results

South San Francisco, - May 07, 2002

Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIGL) today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2002.

Rigel reported revenues from collaborations of $4.1 million in the first quarter of 2002, compared to $3.2 million in the first quarter of 2001. The increase in revenues primarily relates to Rigel’s collaboration with Novartis focusing on the discovery and development of small molecule compounds to inhibit angiogenesis. This project began in mid-2001.

Total operating expenses were $12.5 million in the first quarter of 2002, compared to $7.9 million in the first quarter of 2001 and $11.0 in operating expenses in the fourth quarter of 2001. This increase reflects the progress of building our drug development infrastructure and increased preclinical activities as Rigel prepares for entering its first product into clinical trials.

For the first quarter, Rigel reported a net loss of $8.4 million, or $0.19 per share, compared to a net loss of $4.2 million, or $0.11 per share, in the same period last year.

As of March 31, 2002, Rigel reported cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $57.5 million, compared to $33.4 million at December 31, 2001. The increase in cash reflects net proceeds of approximately $31 million from the sale of 7.5 million shares of our common stock to certain institutional investors in two offerings under Rigel’s shelf registration statement in the first quarter of 2002.

“We continued to make progress in our efforts of moving our first compound into the clinic later this year,” said James M. Gower, Rigel’s Chairman and CEO. “We look forward to updating you in the coming months as we work to achieve this major milestone.”

During the first quarter, Rigel announced that Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development extended the collaboration between the two companies focused on discovering new cancer therapeutics and diagnostics. The collaboration resulted in the acceptance by Johnson & Johnson of the second of two validated drug targets in the first quarter, resulting in a milestone payment to Rigel.

About Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (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 a cell’s response to the disease. Rigel currently has ten product development programs underway, with five programs being proprietary programs in the areas of asthma/allergy, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease, cancerous tumor growth and hepatitis C. Rigel expects to begin clinical trials during 2002 with one or more drug candidates from these five programs. In addition to the Rigel-owned programs, the company has five joint programs with its corporate partners in the product development areas of asthma/allergy, autoimmunity, transplant rejection and two programs in cancerous tumor growth. With Rigel’s support, one of the company’s partners is conducting an additional program in chronic bronchitis at its premises. Rigel has multi-year 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 Rigel’s drug development programs and clinical trial plans. 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 our results to differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements, including the risks detailed from time to time in Rigel’s SEC reports, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2001. Rigel does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statement.