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Brian Cunningham Joins Rigel as Chief Operating Officer

Sunnyvale, CA --(BW HealthWire)-- - August 28, 1998

Rigel, Inc. today announced that Brian Cunningham has joined the Company in the newly created position of Chief Operating Officer (COO). Mr. Cunningham joins Rigel from Cooley Godward LLP where he was a partner and head of the Life Sciences and Health Care practices. As COO of Rigel he will have broad operational responsibilities, as well as a major role in business and corporate transactions.

"I am very pleased to welcome Brian Cunningham to Rigel's team," commented James Gower, President and CEO of Rigel. "With nearly 20 years experience in building and advising, as well as managing biotech companies over a broad range of matters, Brian will be a key asset as Rigel moves forward in implementing its business strategy for further growth."

As a partner at Cooley Godward, Mr. Cunningham, age 54, led the firm's successful effort to build the premier Life Sciences practice in the United States. Prior to joining Cooley, Mr. Cunningham was vice president and general counsel at Genentech, Inc. for seven years where he built the commercial and intellectual property legal groups and was a key member of the management team that developed a number of novel corporate and financing transactions. Previously, he was Associate Corporate Counsel of Monsanto and securities attorney at Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts in New York City. "I am looking forward to joining an outstanding team which is building an exciting new company. This opportunity allows me to replicate the experience I enjoyed at Genentech with people I know well and respect," said Mr. Cunningham.

During his career, Mr. Cunningham has helped start and negotiate corporate partnering and financing transactions for a number of life sciences companies, including, among others, Arqule, Caliper, Calydon, Cytel, Darwin Molecular, Genentech, Idun, Inhale Therapeutics, Isis, Khepri, Mimetix, Neurogen, Orquest, PowderJect, Ribogene, Sensus, SUGEN, Synteni, Telik, Tripos and Tularik.

Mr. Cunningham received his Juris Doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis after earning a Bachelor of Science in engineering science from Washington University in 1965. He is Chairman of the Board of Partners-in-School Innovation and a member of the Board of Directors of Advanced Imaging Radiology Services, the Bay Area Bioscience Center and the California Health Care Institute.

Rigel, Inc., a privately-held company founded in 1996, is focused on the discovery of novel therapeutic agents that combat disease at a genetic level by controlling targets critical to cell function. The Company's rapid target identification and validation technology integrates proprietary advances in gene transfer techniques with combinatorial chemistry, genomics and ultra high-throughput screening. Rigel's initial therapeutic programs are focused on airway inflammation and oncology. In the former, the Company is identifying targets that regulate mast cell exocytosis and those that control the switch to Immunoglobulin E (IgE) in B cells. In the cancer area, Rigel is identifying targets in the intracellular signaling pathways that control programmed cell death (apoptosis).