SAN DIEGO, Dec. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Alanex Corporation and Novo Nordisk A/S
(NYSE: NVO) announced today an expansion of their collaboration to discover
new drugs to treat diabetes.  Based on the success of the collaboration, Novo
Nordisk has elected to more than double the research funding payable to
Alanex.  Novo Nordisk will continue to have worldwide exclusive marketing
rights of compounds arising out of the collaboration and Alanex will receive
milestone payments and royalties on sales of products.
    Novo Nordisk provided Alanex with two molecular targets for diabetes and
Alanex then established high throughput screens for these targets and has used
its computational and combinatorial chemistry to identify and optimize
compounds with desirable activity profiles.  "A key aspect of the success of
these projects is based on the use of Alanex's combinatorial chemistry and
library design technology," said Alex Polinsky, Vice President and CSO.
Alanex has built a proprietary library design and information management
software, LiBrain(TM), which allows its chemists to synthesize intelligent
chemical libraries for screening for biological activity.  "We are extremely
pleased that Novo Nordisk has elected to significantly increase their
financial commitment to our collaboration.  This support will allow the
collaboration to accelerate the exploitation of our combinatorial chemistry
technology for the discovery of novel small molecule drugs for the treatment
of diabetes," said Dr. Marvin Brown, President and CEO.
    Since the initiation of the project in November 1995, Alanex has
discovered compounds with desired animal pharmacology in one project and
initial leads in a second project.  Novo Nordisk is very pleased with the
progress Alanex was able to achieve in such a short period of time and has, by
increasing their commitment, secured the continued success of both programs.
Based upon the success of this collaboration, it is anticipated that a
development candidate can be selected for one of the programs in early 1998.
    Alanex Corporation, based in San Diego, California, is a privately held
drug discovery company whose mission is to identify small molecule drugs using
its proprietary drug discovery technologies.  Alanex has developed and
integrated its combinatorial chemistry with computational chemistry, high
throughput screening and medicinal chemistry in order to accelerate the
process of going from lead generation to drug candidate in a cost effective
manner.  In December, 1994, Alanex formed a strategic collaboration with Astra
Pharma Inc. to discover and develop drugs for a novel opiod receptor.  In
April 1996, Alanex announced the signing of a collaboration with Novo Nordisk
related to the discovery of small molecules for the treatment of diabetes.  In
July 1996, Alanex entered into a collaboration with Roche Bioscience, a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Roche Holdings, Ltd., to discover novel small
molecule drugs in the area of pain management.  In November, 1996, Alanex
announced a collaboration with Aurora Biosciences whereby Alanex will provide
its exploratory chemical library for new lead generation in Aurora's novel
fluorescence screening systems.
    Novo Nordisk A/S is the world leader in insulin and diabetes care and also
manufactures and markets a variety of other pharmaceutical products.
Furthermore, the company is the world's largest producer of industrial
enzymes.  Headquartered in Denmark, Novo Nordisk employs approximately 13,400
people in 54 countries and markets its products in 130 countries.  Its B
shares are listed on the stock exchanges in Copenhagen, London, Basel, Zurich
and Geneva.  Its ADS's are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the
symbol "NVO."

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