Affinium Pharmaceuticals announced the attainment of discovery milestones resulting from its strategic alliance for structure guided drug discovery with Pfizer Inc, a world leading research-based pharmaceutical company.

In May of 2002, Affinium and Pfizer initiated a drug discovery alliance to ascertain the structure, function and potential druggability of a number of targets in Pfizer drug discovery programs. In May 2003, the beginning of year two of the collaboration, Affinium achieved collaboration goals for production, functional characterization and structure determination of targets which triggered undisclosed discovery milestone payments to Affinium.

Dr. John D. Mendlein, Affinium's Chairman and CEO, said, "In the first year our Pfizer alliance has provided great scientific achievements. The progress to date is a reflection of innovative thinking on the part of scientists from both companies. We look forward to continued progress and success in our programs with Pfizer."

The alliance leverages Affinium's proprietary, automated, functional, chemical and structural proteomics systems for drug discovery. Using its proprietary ProteoWorks and ProteoVision Systems, Affinium has solved a number of novel structures for high priority targets. As the collaboration continues, Affinium will apply its proprietary ChemVision System for the determination of target structures complexed with small molecules and may also take responsibility for chemistry interrogation of select targets.

In addition to discovery milestones, Affinium receives payments for research support and database licenses and is eligible for potential clinical milestones.