Paris, FRANCE (October 30, 2008) - Aureus Pharma, a leading provider of knowledge management solutions that accelerate life science discovery, announced today that they will participate in a consortium along with a number of industrial and academic research teams in a European Commission funded project entitled "preDiCT: Computational Prediction of Drug Cardiac Toxicity".

The goal of the three year preDiCT project is to develop models to predict the effects of drugs on the heart. This is an important mission as many potential drug candidates fail during drug development due to adverse cardiotox safety factors. Computer models for cardiotoxicity will not only help to prioritize but also ultimately avoid costly laboratory experimentation.

Aureus´ contribution to the project will be to use its expertise in Ion Channel/hERG knowledge databases and knowledge management to design, build and populate the platform required for storing the experimental data that will be used to build models as well as the framework for collecting the knowledge generated in the modeling studies.

"We are delighted to participate in this important scientific initiative driven by a prestigious partner University Of Oxford in the United Kingdom," commented Jason Theodosiou, CEO of Aureus Pharma. "Our AurSCOPE Ion Channel and hERG knowledge databases and Aureus´ expertise in building knowledge management registration systems, provides a strong foundation to build upon for Aureus´ contributions to this project."

In addition to Aureus Pharma, other partners include F. Hoffmann-LaRoche AG, Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe Limited, GlaxoSmithkline Research and Development, Novartis Pharma AG, University of Szeged, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia and the CRS4, Center for Advanced Studies Research & Development in Sardinia. The University of Oxford is the coordinator of the project.

The project is part of a larger European Commission linked to the Virtual Physiological Human Network of Excellence. More information related to preDiCT can be found at http://www.vph-predict.eu/

About Aureus Pharma
Aureus Pharma headquartered in Paris, France is a privately held knowledge management based solutions provider for the life sciences industry. Aureus Pharma accelerates new drug discovery by providing knowledge databases which contain high quality quantitative information for both chemistry and biology. Researchers gain rapid access to knowledge for important drug target classes including GPCR, Ion Channel, Kinase as well as other critical pharmaceutical topics including ADME/Drug-Drug Interactions and the hERG Channel. The information contained in the Aureus Pharma system is of primary importance to aid in lead discovery and optimization as well as to build predictive models. For further information on how Aureus Pharma helps researchers turn data into discovery visit www.aureus-pharma.com