Lycera Adds Accomplished Scientists to Scientific Advisory Board

ANN ARBOR, MI--(Marketwire - August 18, 2009) - Lycera Corp. today announced the appointment
of five accomplished scientists and clinicians to its Scientific Advisory
Board. The company, which recently announced a $36 million Series A
financing, is developing novel small-molecule pharmaceuticals to treat
autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel
disease.

"Each of these five distinguished scientists brings a wealth of experience
and knowledge to Lycera and will be instrumental in our continued
development of treatments for autoimmune diseases," said Dr. Gary Glick,
Lycera's co-founder and chief scientific officer.

Joining Lycera's Scientific Advisory Board are: Jonathan A. Ellman, Ph.D.,
professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley; David J.
Mangelsdorf, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Pharmacology at University
of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas; Ruslan Medzhitov, Ph.D.,
professor of immunobiology at Yale University School of Medicine; Michael
E. Weinblatt, M.D., co-director of clinical rheumatology at the Brigham and
Women's Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School;
Arthur Weiss, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the Division of Rheumatology in the
Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Drs.
Mangelsdorf, Medzhitov, and Weiss are all investigators of the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute.

"We are excited to welcome these outstanding scientists and clinicians to
our scientific advisory board as we continue to expand our development
initiatives for small-molecule immunomodulators," said Dr. Jeffrey Leiden,
a Lycera board member. "We are particularly pleased to welcome three
additional investigators of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to our
team."

The addition of these five scientists and clinicians to Lycera's team adds
depth in several areas that are key to the company's mission. Drs.
Medzhitov and Weiss are both world-renowned immunologists. Drs. Ellman,
Mangelsdorf, and Weinblatt are experts in chemistry, pharmacology and
clinical rheumatology, respectively.

About the New Scientific Advisory Board Members

Dr. Jonathan A. Ellman is a professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley. He also
holds a joint appointment in the Department of Cellular and Molecular
Pharmacology at UCSF. Dr. Ellman's research emphasizes practical and
general methods for the asymmetric synthesis of amines, which are among the
most important functionalities present in drugs. He is a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, serves on the
editorial advisory boards of several journals and is a consultant to
pharmaceutical companies. He was co-founder of Sunesis Pharmaceuticals and
has served on the scientific advisory boards of a number of life sciences
companies. He has a B.S. from MIT and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He conducted
postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley.

Dr. David J. Mangelsdorf is professor and chair of the Department of
Pharmacology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas,
where he holds the Beatrice and Miguel Elias distinguished chair in
biomedical science. He is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute. Dr. Mangelsdorf's long-time interests have focused on the study
of nuclear receptors, a family of ligand-dependent transcription factors.
In 2008 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He received a
B.S. in biology and chemistry (summa cum laude) from Northern Arizona
University, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Arizona. He
completed postdoctoral studies at The Salk Institute for Biological
Studies.

Dr. Ruslan Medzhitov is the David W. Wallace professor of immunobiology at
Yale University School of Medicine and is also an investigator of the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research focuses on the analysis of
the innate immune system, inflammatory response, innate control of adaptive
immunity, and host-pathogen interactions. Dr. Medzhitov's scientific
contributions have been recognized with several awards, including the
William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor
Immunology from the Cancer Research Institute and the Howard Taylor
Ricketts Award from the University of Chicago. In 2000, he was selected as
a Searle Scholar. Following undergraduate studies at Tashkent State
University, he obtained his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Moscow State
University. He completed postdoctoral training at Yale University School of
Medicine.

Dr. Michael E. Weinblatt is co-director of clinical rheumatology at the
Brigham and Women's Hospital and the John R. and Eileen K.
Riedman professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. His major research
interest is in therapeutics for rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Weinblatt is the
author of The Arthritis Action Program and has authored or co-authored more
than 160 published papers, reviews, and book chapters on rheumatology. He
currently sits on multiple editorial boards for journals including Journal
of Rheumatology. Dr. Weinblatt was a member of the Rheumatology
Subspecialty Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine and served as
the President of the American College of Rheumatology in 2001. He earned
his B.A. at McDaniel College (formerly Western Maryland College) and his
M.D. (magna cum laude) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine
where he also completed an internship and residency. He had a clinical
fellowship at Harvard Medical School and a clinical fellowship in
rheumatology at Robert B. Brigham Hospital in Boston.

Dr. Arthur Weiss is the Ephraim P. Engleman distinguished professor and
chief of the Division of Rheumatology in the Department of Medicine at
UCSF. He is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Dr. Weiss is a leader in the study of the signal transduction events that
control T lymphocyte responses, and their connection to autoimmune
diseases. He is currently president of the American Association of
Immunologists. He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine.
Dr. Weiss received his B.A. at the Johns Hopkins University and his M.D.
and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago School of Medicine. He did
postdoctoral training at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer
Research and his clinical training in internal medicine and rheumatology at
UCSF.

Lycera's Scientific Advisory Board, including the newly announced members,
is comprised of: Jonathan A. Ellman, Ph.D., John McCall, Ph.D., and William
R. Roush, Ph.D., who are experts in medicinal chemistry; James L.M.
Ferrara, M.D., and Michael E. Weinblatt, M.D., who are leaders in clinical
testing and translational medicine of immunomodulators; Douglas Green,
Ph.D., David J. Mangelsdorf, Ph.D., Michael A. Marletta, Ph.D., Anthony W.
Opipari, Jr., M.D., who are biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology
authorities; and Dan Littman, M.D., Ph.D. Ruslan Medzhitov, Ph.D., and
Arthur Weiss, M.D., Ph.D., who are immunology experts.

About Lycera

Lycera Corp. is focused on the discovery and development of small-molecule
immunomodulators for the treatment of patients with autoimmune diseases
including psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus erythematosis,
inflammatory bowel disease and transplant rejection. Lycera is developing
drug candidates that target two novel therapeutic pathways and have the
potential for first-in-class oral efficacy without the adverse effects of
current standard-of-care antiproliferative and immunosuppressive agents.
Visit www.lycera.com for more information.