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New Firm, MIICRO Inc., Pioneers Advancements in CNS Drug Development August 26, 1997 CHICAGO, Aug. 25 -- Researchers at MIICRO Inc. are advancing knowledge of brain-behavior relationships and improving the treatment of neurological disorders and psychiatric disease. The new company is transferring its metabolic neuroimaging technology to Phase I and Phase II clinical trials of drugs that will treat central nervous system (CNS) diseases such as Alzheimer's and schizophrenia. Research in this area is being done jointly with Dr. Malcolm Cooper and Dr. John Metz at the University of Chicago. The company's core technology, the OMEI(TM) method, relates a condition in the brain to a stimulus effect through analysis of statistical metabolic image data. The technology has been previously unavailable to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. MIICRO's method measures downsteam changes in regional glucose metabolism to show how drugs alter the brain's activity: the end-effect of the drug- receptor interaction and sequentially induced post-synaptic responses. Using MIICRO's method of metabolic imaging, drug developers can eliminate the costly guess work that typifies much of the CNS drug development industry. Currently, developers spend about $500 million over 17 years to bring a single drug to market. A 1995 study reported that a single Phase I clinical trial costs approximately $3.1 million and requires about 24 months to complete. Phase II trials were reported to take approximately 42 months at an average cost of $16.0 million. However, only 20% of compounds entering clinical trials will ever receive FDA approval. Metabolic neuroimaging will allow developers to identify ineffective CNS compounds before wasting time and money. Developers will also design more effective and inexpensive Phase II trials because they will better determine a drug's effectiveness within the quantified dose range. MIICRO's President and CEO Ciaran Cooper co-founded the company in 1995 and has raised $1.4 million in private equity capital. Proceeds from the private placement have been used to fund marketing and sales activities as well as further develop the company's technology. "MIICRO's quantitative neuroimaging offers a new basis for strategic planning," commented Mr. Cooper. "The technology provides previously unavailable measurements of dose response and drug effect that may improve cost effectiveness of the entire CNS drug development industry." MIICRO, Inc. is a privately held, biomedical information technology and services company that provides neuroimaging services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. In this regard, the company is operating as a specialized contract research organization. The company's research and development is supported by government-sponsored grants (such as SBIR awards), collaborative research with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and its own directed research program aimed at further developing applications for the OMEI(TM) method in other industries. SOURCE MIICRO Inc. /CONTACT: Declan Cooper of MIICRO , 312-455-0934, or e-mail: [log in to unmask]