AVRX Avalon Pharmaceuticals (MM)

- Alan G. Walton, Ph.D., D.Sc., will remain as Director - GERMANTOWN, Md., Aug. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVRX), today announced the appointment of Bradley G. Lorimier as Chairman of the Board of Directors. He succeeds Alan G. Walton, Ph.D., D.Sc., who will stay on as a Director. "We are delighted with the appointment of Brad Lorimier to Chairman of the Avalon Board," said Kenneth C. Carter, Ph.D., President and CEO of Avalon Pharmaceuticals. "His extensive industry experience and work with the Company since our beginning has proved invaluable to our success and we look forward to his leadership in this new role. We are also deeply grateful and indebted to the vision and leadership provided to the Company by Alan Walton and we look forward to his continued contributions in the years ahead." Bradley G. Lorimier is a co-founder of Avalon and has served as a member of the Board of Directors since December 1999. "I am delighted to accept the chairmanship and look forward to working with the Board of Directors to help the Avalon management team as they continue to grow the company," said Mr. Lorimier. Currently, Mr. Lorimier is a member of the Board of Directors for Invitrogen Corporation and was its past Chairman. Mr. Lorimier is also a Board member for several private venture backed companies and was a past director of Matrix Pharmaceutical, Inc. Since 1997, he has been an independent consultant to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and prior to that had a long and distinguished business career with several Fortune 500 companies. In 1997 Brad retired as the Senior Vice President of Business Development and Member of the Board of Directors for Human Genome Sciences (HGS). Prior to that, Mr. Lorimier held positions of increasing responsibility at Johnson & Johnson where he was Vice President of Licensing for the Pharmaceutical Sector, Vice President of Corporate Development for Ortho McNeil and Member of the Management Committee and Executive Committee Member of the R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute. Prior to Johnson & Johnson, Brad held Senior Management positions with Sterling Drugs and Revlon Health Care. Mr. Lorimier received his B.S. from the University of Illinois in 1967. About Avalon Pharmaceuticals Avalon is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of first-in-class cancer therapeutics. Avalon's lead product candidate, AVN944, an IMPDH inhibitor, is in Phase II clinical development. Avalon also has preclinical programs to develop inhibitors of the Beta-catenin and Aurora pathways, discovery programs for inhibitors of the survivin and Myc pathways and partnerships with Merck, MedImmune, Medarex, and Novartis. AvalonRx(R) is the company's proprietary platform which is based on large-scale biomarker identification and monitoring, used to discover and develop therapeutics for pathways that have historically been characterized as "undruggable." Avalon is headquartered in Germantown, Md. Contacts: Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Russo Partners, LLC David D. Muth Wendy Lau (Media) Executive Vice President & Tel: (212) 845-4272 Chief Business Officer Tel: (301) 556-9900 The Trout Group LLC Fax: (301) 556-9910 Chad Rubin (Investors) Email: Tel: (646) 378-2947 DATASOURCE: Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. CONTACT: David D. Muth, Executive Vice President & Chief Business Officer of Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., +1-301-556-9900, or Fax, +1-301-556-9910, or ; or Media, Wendy Lau of Russo Partners, LLC, +1-212-845-4272; or Investors, Chad Rubin of The Trout Group LLC, +1-646-378-2947

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