PRNewswire - November 18, 1999

The target has not been licensed to another company and represents Myriad's seventh internal drug development program. Assays for drugs that modify the target have been created in preparation for high-throughput screening by Myriad Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the Company's wholly owned subsidiary.

"This new HIV drug target is especially exciting in that it has the potential to improve on current treatments for AIDS. With the evolution of multi-drug resistant strains of the virus comes an increased need for therapies that act through different mechanisms," said Adrian Hobden, Ph.D., President of Myriad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. "The ability to establish long-term suppression of viral activity will allow HIV-positive individuals to lead longer and healthier lives. Novel approaches such as Myriad's may well provide that extended therapeutic benefit to patients."

HIV is the seventh therapeutic area under development by Myriad Pharmaceuticals. The Company has current programs in the areas of cancer (angiogenesis), rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis and chronic pain as well as sleep disorders and cognition. In September of this year, the Company announced that it had identified six new drug targets from within these program areas. High-throughput proprietary screens for small-molecule drugs have been built for all six and screening has begun on three targets. The new HIV target for drug development, as with the first six, was identified through Myriad's ProNet(TM) technology, which discovers protein interactions, identifying key regulators of important disease pathways.

Myriad Pharmaceuticals' competitive strategy involves the discovery of novel, innovative drugs for common diseases with large potential markets that are underserved by current medical options and which have not been exploited by major pharmaceutical companies. Myriad Pharmaceuticals intends to develop promising compounds up to the human clinical trials stage, reducing the development time and cost for its future pharmaceutical company partners, and anticipates a substantial new near-term revenue source. The Company plans to partner its compounds with a pharmaceutical organization to move the drugs through the human clinical testing phase. Two of the Company's recent collaborations are structured as 50/50 profit-sharing arrangements.

Created to exploit the target-rich data flowing from the Company's ProNet(TM) technologies, Myriad Pharmaceuticals anticipates generating a large number of small-molecule drug leads from high-throughput proprietary drug screening of targets. The Company's facility is capable of screening 12.5 million matrixed compounds per year, to maximize the number of potential new drug compounds discovered for development.

Myriad Genetics, Inc. is a leading genomics company focused on the development of therapeutic and diagnostic products based on the discovery of genes involved in major common diseases. The Company has established two wholly owned subsidiaries -- Myriad Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which develops and markets therapeutic compounds ready for human clinical trials, and Myriad Genetic Laboratories, Inc., which develops and markets proprietary molecular diagnostic services and has introduced products in the fields of predictive medicine and personalized medicine. The Company has established strategic alliances with Bayer, Eli Lilly, Monsanto, Novartis, Schering AG and Schering- Plough.

Note to editor: This and other recent releases are available on Myriad's website at http://www.myriad.com.

The discussion in this news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding the ability of the newly discovered drug target to enable the creation of an entirely new class of therapeutics, the effect that both long- term suppression a of viral activity and Myriad's new approaches will have on the lives of HIV-positive individuals, the ability of Myriad Pharmaceuticals to develop compounds up to the human clinical trial stage and the impact of such on the development time and cost for future pharmaceutical company partners and on the Company's revenue, the Company's ability to partner its compounds with a pharmaceutical organization, and the Company's ability to generate small-molecule drug leads from screening targets. Such statements are based on management's current expectations that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause future results to differ materially from those set forth in or implied by forward-looking statements, including but not limited to, the timely implementation by the Company of its plan to prepare its computer systems for the year 2000, the cost to the Company of such implementation, and the timely conversion by other parties on which the Company's business relies; intense competition related to the discovery of disease-related genes; uncertainties as to whether the Company and its collaborators will be successful in developing, and obtaining regulatory approval for, and commercial acceptance of, therapeutics based on the discovery of disease-related genes and proteins; uncertainties as to the Company's ability to develop therapeutic lead compounds, which is a new business area for the Company; and the risk that markets will not exist for therapeutic lead compounds that the Company develops or if such markets exist, that the Company will not be able to sell compounds, which it develops, at acceptable prices.

SOURCE Myriad Genetics, Inc.

CONTACT: William A. Hockett, Director of Corporate Communications of Myriad Genetics, Inc., 801-584-3600, bhockett@myriad.com/

Web Site: http://www.myriad.com/
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