ACLA Aclara Biosciences, (MM)

Prominent Oncologist Appointed to ACLARA Scientific Advisory Board MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ACLARA BioSciences (NASDAQ:ACLA) announced that Jose Baselga, MD has been appointed to its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Baselga is Professor of Medicine at the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona and the Scientific Chairman of the Spanish Breast Cancer cooperative group SOLTI. Dr. Baselga's research interests are in clinical breast cancer and in translational and early clinical research in the area of growth factor receptors and downstream molecules as targets for cancer therapy. He has been involved in the clinical development of a number of new therapeutic agents. In addition to many professional and academic appointments, Dr. Baselga is a member of the Board of Directors of ASCO. Dr. Baselga is Associate Editor of Annals of Oncology and a member of the Editorial Advisor Board for Cancer Cell, Clinical Cancer Research and Investigational New Drugs. He is also ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Cancer Research and Cancer, among others. Dr. Baselga has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, in addition to over 200 abstracts and book chapters. "I am very excited about ACLARA's technology and approach, and think it could represent an important advance in the treatment of cancer," said Dr. Baselga. "A better understanding of the biology occurring within a patient's tumor cells will enable the most appropriate therapy to be prescribed and administered." ACLARA's advisory board now comprises six internationally-renowned scientists and physicians with interests ranging from basic research to clinical diagnosis and treatment of a range of different cancers and immune system disorders. "ACLARA's primary focus is in deploying our eTag System as a molecular diagnostic to aid in the development and ultimately prescription of individualized medicines, particularly targeted cancer therapies," commented Thomas Klopack, ACLARA chief executive officer. "We are particularly pleased to have a prominent clinician such as Dr. Baselga join the advisory board as he is very experienced in the clinical development and use of such targeted cancer therapies." The ability of the eTag System to identify difficult-to-detect protein complexes in patient samples can provide unique insights to the likelihood of an individual patient to respond to specific therapies. In addition, since ACLARA's eTag System requires only small amounts of biological material, and have been shown to work in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue sections (the standard format in pathology laboratories), both retrospective and prospective analysis of clinical samples can be performed. To further validate its eTag System, ACLARA is correlating its test results with patient response data and outcome information to demonstrate the assays' predictive power. According to Klopack, "We have ongoing studies with several clinical collaborators based on the retrospective study of tissue samples from patients participating in clinical trials for new drugs as well as from those being treated with approved therapies. The preliminary results of these studies are very encouraging. We are looking forward to the participation of Dr. Baselga and other leading cancer experts in further studies, and the incorporation of these assays into clinical practice." About ACLARA Founded in 1995, ACLARA is a biotechnology company working to provide physicians and researchers products and services to make personalized medicine a reality through its protein-based assay technology -- the eTag(TM) System. ACLARA is dedicated to unlocking the power of pathway biology to accelerate the development of next-generation targeted therapeutics, recognizing the most appropriate patients for approved therapies and identifying the highly-specific, protein-based biomarkers that will enable physicians to create truly personalized treatment regimens for patients suffering from cancer and other life-threatening disorders. ACLARA is commercializing its proprietary eTag System to enhance and accelerate drug discovery research and the preclinical and clinical development of targeted therapeutics. ACLARA's technology may also enable the development of highly-specific, protein-based diagnostics capable of providing physicians with a powerful tool for creating personalized treatment regimens for patients suffering from serious and difficult-to-treat cancers. For more information on ACLARA please visit the Company's web site at http://www.aclara.com/. Forward-Looking Statements All statements in this news release that are not historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Such forward-looking statements are subject to factors that could cause actual results to differ materially for ACLARA from those projected. Those factors include risks and uncertainties relating to the performance of our products, anticipated progress in commercialization of our eTag(TM) assay system; the potential for use of our eTag assays in clinical development programs; the potential for use of our eTag assays as diagnostic tests; our ability to successfully conduct clinical studies and the results obtained from those studies; our ability to establish reliable, high-volume operations at commercially reasonable costs; expected reliance on a few customers for the majority of our revenues; actual market acceptance of our products and adoption of our technological approach and products by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies; our estimate of the size of our markets; our estimates of the levels of demand for our products; our ability to develop organizational capabilities suitable for the further development and commercialization of our eTag assays; the ultimate validity and enforceability of our patent applications and patents; the possible infringement of the intellectual property of others; technological approaches of ACLARA and our competitors; our pending merger with ViroLogic, Inc., including the risk that the closing conditions or the merger may not be satisfied and the merger may not be completed, and costs related to the proposed merger; and other risk factors identified in our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2004 as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trademarks ACLARA BioSciences is a registered trademark, and eTag and the ACLARA logo are trademarks of ACLARA BioSciences, Inc. DATASOURCE: ACLARA BioSciences, Inc. CONTACT: investors, Alfred Merriweather, VP, Finance and CFO of ACLARA BioSciences, Inc., +1-650-210-1200, or ; or media, Jennifer Viera of Schwartz Communications, +1-781-684-0770, or , for ACLARA BioSciences, Inc. Web site: http://www.aclara.com/

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