TransTech Pharma, Inc. Increases Series E Preferred Stock Round by $30 Million; Closes $10 Million Tranche

HIGH POINT, N.C., July 12, 2004 -- TransTech Pharma, Inc.- today announced that it had increased its Series E Preferred Stock round by an additional $30 million and closed on the first tranche of $10 million. Subsequent closings for the remaining $20 million are scheduled later in the year and in 2005. This $30 million expansion brings the total amount of funds raised or committed in the Series E round to $65 million. Investors in this financing included TransTech's largest shareholder, New York-based MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, as well as one of TransTech's research partners, Novo Nordisk A/S.

TransTech will use a portion of the proceeds to advance several of its proprietary small molecule drug programs into development during 2004 and 2005. In May, TransTech announced the successful completion of Phase I clinical testing of its first drug candidate, TTP889, an orally bioavailable selective inhibitor of the intrinsic coagulation pathway, which is being developed as an anticoagulant for the treatment of thromboembolic disorders. Phase II clinical testing for this drug is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2004. Earlier this year, the Company filed its second IND and, in June, initiated Phase I testing for a novel, orally active drug for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. TransTech expects to advance into clinical trials next year other preclinical drug candidates that target unmet medical needs.

Adnan Mjalli, Ph.D., Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of TransTech, said, "The expansion of this round of financing demonstrates the level of confidence that our investors have with the continued progress of our proprietary and partnered drug discovery programs. These funds will provide funding for clinical trials for our clinical drug candidates and support continued development of other later-stage preclinical candidates."

TransTech Pharma is a privately held drug discovery company employing approximately 75 people. The Company's high-throughput drug discovery platform, Translational Technology®, translates the wealth of information from genomics and proteomics into novel and effective small molecules as therapeutics. TransTech has developed several proprietory internal drug discovery programs in various stages of pre-clinical and clinical development for the treatment of human diseases of unmet medical need including thrombosis, Alzheimer's, diabetes/obesity and the neutralization of potential biowarfare agents. In addition to its internal drug discovery programs, TransTech is actively involved in three research collaborations to discover and develop drug candidates with pharmaceutical/biotech companies Novo Nordisk A/S, Cephalon, Inc. and SIGA Technologies, Inc. For further information about the company, go to its web site at www.ttpharma.com.