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Rigel to Present at the 6th Annual BIO CEO and Investor Conference

South San Francisco, CA - February 24, 2004

Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: RIGL) will present at the BIO CEO and Investor Conference on Wednesday, February 25th at 9:30 a.m. Eastern at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City in the ASTOR room. James M. Gower, Rigel's chairman and chief executive officer, will participate in a panel discussing potential new therapeutic approaches to treating hepatitis B and C viruses. Gower will discuss Rigel's hepatitis C virus (HCV) program and its clinical development efforts with R803, an experimental drug to treat HCV, the blood-borne virus that affects nearly 170 million people worldwide.

Rigel's R803, a non-nucleoside HCV polymerase inhibitor, is an oral, small-molecule compound. Clinical data indicates that R803 is well tolerated with no clinically significant adverse effects reported in the dosing schedule that Rigel plans to use in further clinical trials. Rigel plans to launch a Phase I/II clinical trial of R803 in the U.S. during the second quarter of 2004 in HCV-infected patients. To date, R803 has demonstrated potent activity in inhibiting viral replication in cell-based assay systems and in live virus assays. R803 has been shown to be active against various genotypes of HCV, including genotype 1, the strain responsible for approximately 70 percent of chronic HCV cases in the United States. In various assays, R803 appears to act within days to reduce viral levels.

About Rigel (www.rigel.com)
Rigel's mission is to become a source of novel, small-molecule drugs to meet large, unmet medical needs. Rigel has three initial clinical development programs: asthma/allergy, hepatitis C and rheumatoid arthritis. Rigel has begun clinical testing of its first two product candidates, R112 for allergic rhinitis and R803 for hepatitis C, and plans to begin clinical trials of two additional drug candidates, for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and asthma, by the end of 2004.

This press release contains "forward-looking" statements, including statements related to Rigel's plans to pursue clinical development of drug candidates and the timing thereof and the potential efficacy of drug candidates. 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 "plans," "intends," "expects" and similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. There are a number of important factors that could cause Rigel's results to differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements, including risks associated with the timing and success of clinical trials and the commercialization of product candidates, as well as other risks detailed from time to time in Rigel's SEC reports, including its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2003 and Annual Report on Form 10-K, as amended, for the year ended December 31, 2002. Rigel does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements.