Singapore, Mar 09, 2010: ExonHit Therapeutics and bioMérieux have decided not to pursue their collaboration in colon cancer, following a recent review of data by their scientific committee. Both companies continue to collaborate in the field of prostate cancer.

"ExonHit's technology was able to produce a robust and reproducible test however, the final results from the colon cancer program did not reach the level of performance we were aiming to achieve. Therefore, we have decided together with bioMérieux to focus our efforts on the prostate cancer program," commented Loïc Maurel, President of the Management Board of ExonHit Therapeutics.

"Biomarker discovery is a strategic focus of innovation research for bioMerieux, but is a challenging scientific, medical and business endeavor. We made the decision to stop this Colon cancer screening Research program with ExonHit after reviewing the results of the clinical data. Our teams have learned a lot about this important disease", said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of bioMérieux. "We look forward to continuing our collaboration together in the area of prostate cancer."

ExonHit and bioMérieux collaboration is dedicated to the discovery of biomarkers for the detection of certain cancers.