Tokyo, Nov 29, 2004: aRigen Inc. is pleased to announce the signing of Drug Discovery research collaboration agreement with the Hyderabad, India-based Matrix Laboratories Limited. The Agreement was signed by Mr.N.Prasad, Chairman & CEO of Matrix Laboratories, and Mr. G. Tokoro, President and Chairman of aRigen in Tokyo today.

The Agreement outlines a multi-year joint drug development program under which matrix will prepare compounds for screening to determine the lead compound and supply samples to aRigen. Consequently, aRigen will arrange to conduct the pre-clinical and clinical studies. Matrix will supply the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) for the molecule/s under development.

"We are delighted to initiate the drug discovery program with aRigen to take advantage of their pioneering work being done in new drug discovery. This is a collaboration between the pharmaceutical and scientific community of India and Japan. I hope this will lead to further co-operation between the two countries in this area." said Mr. N. Prasad, Chairman of Matrix laboratories.

"We visited Matrix Laboratories in Hyderabad over the last few months and were very impressed by their world class facilities and outstanding scientific talent. We expect that this joint development program will enable us to reduce drug development costs and give us time-to-market advantage." said Mr. G. Tokoro, Chairman of aRigen.

Headquartered in Tokyo, aRigen Inc. was founded in 2001 by a team of scientists having vast experience in pharmaceutical research with the funding support of Japanese VCs, institutional investors and foreign funds. With a focus on Drug Discovery in the area of infectious diseases, aRigen currently has a R&D pipeline of over 15 products with some of them in Phase-II trials.

Matrix Laboratories Limited, situated at Hyderabad, India, is a public company listed on the premier Stock Exchanges of India and is engaged in the manufacture of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients for regulated markets such as USA, Europe, Canada and Japan. For the half year ended September 2004, the company achieved revenues of US$ 74 Million and the market capitalization of the Company is around US$ 600 Million. For the financial year ended March 2004, Matrix recorded revenues of about US$ 124 Million and net profit of US$ 28 Million.