BioNumerik: Dr. Fred Hausheer 210/614-1701 Cray/Media: Steve Conway 612/683-7133 Cray/Financial: Brad Allen 612/683-7395 BIONUMERIK, CRAY RESEARCH PARTNER TO SPEED DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTER-DESIGNED DRUGS TO COMBAT CANCER, HEART DISEASE EAGAN, Minn. and SAN ANTONIO, Tex., Oct. 27, 1994 -- Pharmaceutical research and development firm BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (BioNumerik), San Antonio, will enter a beta site agreement for new supercomputer systems from Cray Research, Inc. (NYSE:CYR), which are designed to speed the development of powerful new drugs to combat cancer and heart disease, the companies announced today. Under the agreement, BioNumerik will operate Cray Research's newest supercomputer systems in a collaboration to optimize proprietary BioNumerik software for use on these systems, according to BioNumerik chairman and CEO Dr. Fred Hausheer, a widely recognized expert in cancer treatment, pharmacology and supercomputer-aided drug design. The goals of the agreement are to test the operation of BioNumerik's advanced software and Cray Research's new parallel supercomputer systems in the development of an innovative, time-saving approach to drug development. The Cray systems are expected to help accelerate BioNumerik's ongoing research in this area, Dr. Hausheer said. One of the most important goals of this collaboration will be the introduction of new pharmaceutical agents into clinical practice. "This trial of advanced software and hardware is different from previous rational drug design methods such as computer- aided drug design, where computers have been used to analyze but not optimize existing substances for potential use as drugs," he said. "Ours is a new approach that is intended to use parallel supercomputer power to design and develop new substances with optimal, highly specific disease-fighting capabilities. This new method could save up to $200 million in development costs per drug and cut the time to market by as much as six years." BioNumerik is currently engaged in preclinical development of several anticancer drugs aimed at treating the most common and deadly adult cancers, including tumors of the lung, breast, colon, prostate, pancreas and melanoma. "We are working to develop drugs that selectively kill cancer cells and spare normal cells so that patients will have more effective treatment with fewer side effects," he said. In addition, Dr. Hausheer said, the company is developing two new cardiovascular drugs: a new agent to elevate HDL, or "good cholesterol," and a second product that reduces LDL, or "bad cholesterol." These therapies are being developed under an exclusive licensing agreement with the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research. "We've worked with Cray Research in the past and are excited to renew this collaboration," Dr. Hausheer said. Cray shared memory parallel systems provide powerful and practical tools for our applications." "Current cancer-fighting agents are like imperfect keys that can't efficiently unlock the mechanisms of cancer cells in order to kill them on a very selective basis," said Dr. Rein Saral, Professor of Medicine at Emory University and director of the Emory Clinic. "Fred Hausheer and his team are making progress in developing new agents that promise to be near- perfect keys -- selective cancer-cell killers with reduced toxic side effects. Dr. Hausheer is an outstanding investigator and an internationally acknowledged leader in this field," he added. "Cray Research is proud that BioNumerik is working with us on the development of these new technologies using our systems," said Cray Research chairman and CEO John F. Carlson. "We expect this partnership to enhance our capabilities and prospects in the pharmaceutical industry." "The partnership between BioNumerik and Cray Research is absolutely unique in applying supercomputer technology to address new pharmaceutical development and cancer medicine," said Martin D. Abeloff, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center. "The investigators at Johns Hopkins Oncology Center are looking forward to collaborating with BioNumerik on the development of new and more effective anticancer drugs. Our goal is to work together to speed up the discovery and development process for improved cancer treatment. This collaboration is a model for the future of the pharmaceutical industry." "Dr. Hausheer has a unique combination of clinical and computational expertise that enables him to bring a rare perspective to drug discovery," according to Dr. Babu Venkatarghavan, director of structural biology, Lederle Laboratories. "Effective utilization of high-performance Cray computer systems has been an area of interest to Dr. Hausheer for the last decade. The novel computer-oriented techniques being pursued at BioNumerik under his leadership will no doubt yield exciting results." "Fred Hausheer is one of the most respected pioneers in the study of why certain drugs are more effective than others in treating a given disease," said George A. Michael, senior research fellow (ret.), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "This collaboration with Cray Research is exciting, since his work benefits enormously from the use of very powerful, well-balanced supercomputers." Carlson said Dr. Hausheer is one the world's foremost pharmaceutical researchers. "He has served on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center and the University of Texas Health Science Center, is co-holder of many patents involving new therapeutic agents, was the 1992 recipient of the IEEE Forefronts in Large-Scale Computation Award and a finalist for the 1993 Computerworld Smithsonian award for Breakthrough Computational Science." BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals was formed in 1992 to develop novel, breakthrough drugs for the treatment of cancer and other diseases, using a unique methodology involving supercomputer technology and proprietary molecular simulation software. Cray Research provides the leading supercomputing tools and services to help solve customers' most challenging problems. ###