Conatus Pharmaceuticals Appoints Anthony W. Fox, MD, Ph.D., as Chief Medical Officer

SAN DIEGO, March 25, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- -- Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. today announced the appointment of Anthony "Tony" W. Fox as part-time Chief Medical Officer to oversee the recently initiated Phase 2 clinical trial of CTS-1027 in Hepatitis C virus-infected patients as well as assisting in the development of the longer-term clinical development plans.

Tony is a pharmaceutical physician with more than 20 years in the industry. Previous industrial positions have been at Procter and Gamble, Glaxo Inc. (Imitrex (R), Ultiva(R), Amerge(R)), and with small companies. Formerly, Tony was President of the whole of EBD Group, and continues now as President of EBD Consulting Inc., (Carlsbad, CA, and Munich, Germany). Among his current professional affiliations are the American College of Clinical Pharmacology, the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and the Society of Apothecaries of London. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Biology and the Royal College of Physicians, as well as of the latter's Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine. Tony's numerous publications span industrial, pharmacological, regulatory, and experimental medicine areas. He co-edits "Principles and Practice of Pharmaceutical Medicine" (John Wiley and Son, second edition), which is a major international textbook in its field.

"Tony fills a critical position at Conatus," said Steven J. Mento, Ph.D., President and CEO, of Conatus. "He brings significant scientific and management experience and will be of strategic value as Conatus moves forward with the development of drug candidates to treat diseases such as hepatitis where abnormal inflammation plays a key role."

"This was an opportunity to focus on translating a well-known biological mechanism, with a well-characterized phase 2 compound, into a truly innovative area of medicine. It was also an invitation to join a team whom I already knew to be really sound, and has already achieved hard endpoints," said Dr. Fox.

Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a privately-held specialty pharmaceutical company engaged in the development of innovative human therapeutics to treat liver disease. Chronic liver disease affects millions of people worldwide and can be caused by many different conditions or "insults" to the liver including viral infection, obesity, chronic alcohol abuse or autoimmune diseases. Conatus was founded by the executive management team of Idun Pharmaceuticals in July 2005 following the successful sale of Idun to Pfizer. For additional information, please visit http://www.conatuspharma.com.

SOURCE Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc.

http://www.conatuspharma.com

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