February 7, 2003

BIRMINGHAM, AL, AND BRENTWOOD, TN — VDDI Pharmaceuticals and The UAB Research Foundation (UABRF) on behalf of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering (UAB-CBSE).

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering (UAB-CBSE) and VDDI Pharmaceuticals announced today that their joint collaboration has received patent number 6,500,852 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. VDDI Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical development company with a portfolio of product candidates for the treatment of cardiovascular and infectious diseases, and the UABRF/UAB-CBSE.

This new patent provides protection for a series of compounds discovered at the UAB-CBSE and licensed exclusively to VDDI by the UABRF. The compounds interact with a unique, and to date unexploited, microbial target (NAD synthetase), to inhibit bacterial and fungal growth. Hospital acquired infections, particularly those resistant to currently available therapies, are a critical health care concern and are the target of this new chemical class. The compounds are effective against anthrax and have the potential for use against other bacteriological warfare agents, and are being further developed under a cooperative agreement between VDDI and the DoD.

The patent is the first to be issued in a family of over 20 pending US and international applications that cover the NADs inhibitor technology for all human, animal, and plant uses.

VDDI Pharmaceuticals is a privately held biopharmaceutical development company committed to building a portfolio of products with significant commercial potential in select therapeutic areas. VDDI’s initial focus is on developing products for infectious diseases of bacterial or fungal origins, a global market currently exceeding $30 billion per year. The UABRF is the technology transfer organization of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The UAB-CBSE is dedicated to understanding the structure and function of macromolecules as applied to new drug discovery via intelligent or structure-based, chemical design.

Statements included in this press release that are not historical in nature are “forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You should be aware that our actual results could differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, which are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to, our failure to successfully commercialize our products, costs and delays in the development and FDA approval of our products; our inability to enter into or maintain, and the risks resulting from our dependence upon, collaboration or contractual arrangements necessary for the development, manufacture, commercialization, marketing, sales and distribution of our products; competitive factors; our inability to protect our patents or proprietary rights and obtain necessary rights to third party patents and intellectual property to operate our business; our inability to operate our business without infringing the patents and proprietary rights of others general economic conditions; the failure of our products to gain market acceptance; our inability to obtain any additional required financing; technological changes; government regulation; changes in industry practice; and one-time events. We do not intend to update any of these factors or to publicly announce the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements.

VDDI Pharmaceuticals is on the Internet at: virtualdrugdevelopment.com.

The UAB-CBSE can be located at:
www.cbse.uab.edu.