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Funds Will Advance Clinical Development of Novel Therapies for Insomnia

LEXINGTON, Mass., Dec. 19 /PRÄ¢¹½ÊÓƵAPPwire/ -- Hypnion, Inc., today announced that it raised $20.1 million in an extension of its Series B private equity financing, in response to favorable clinical results in its lead insomnia program. Investors included MPM Capital, Advanced Technology Ventures, Forward Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Oxford Bioscience Partners, GIMV, S.R. One Limited, JAFCO, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, and Mintz Levin Investments. With this financing, Hypnion expects to rapidly advance its lead program into Phase II and a second compound into Phase I.

"This financing demonstrates the confidence and excitement of our investors in the promise and market potential of our clinical programs," said John F. Dee, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Hypnion has discovered and is developing a unique and proprietary series of highly selective H1 receptor modulators to treat chronic insomnia. The basis for these discoveries stemmed from the company's Research and Development efforts that heavily employed SCORE-2004(TM), a proprietary pharmacological drug discovery system for the selection of clinical candidates in insomnia and other neurobiological indications. Pre-clinical studies have demonstrated that Hypnion's proprietary compounds have superior efficacy and side-effect profiles than the leading marketed drugs including Ambien, Lunesta, doxepin, and trazodone. Given their mechanism of action, Hypnion's compounds may have the opportunity to be classified as non-scheduled medications, unlike Ambien and Lunesta. Hypnion believes they could represent a major improvement in the treatment of insomnia. The Company has filed for a broad and comprehensive patent estate for composition of matter and method of use patents.

Insomnia is a serious condition that affects a large number of patients. According to the National Sleep Foundation's Sleep in America Poll 2005, approximately 50% of the adult population reported experiencing at least one symptom of insomnia for several nights a week during the last year. Sleep loss is known to impact learning and memory, and recent research indicates that sleep deprivation not only depresses the immune system, but also may make us vulnerable to many other diseases. To put it into context, the prevalence of insomnia is larger than that of anxiety or depression.

About Hypnion

Hypnion is a neuroscience drug discovery and development company focused on sleep disorders. Our product candidates and research capabilities address large untapped markets including insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness, sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, and fibromyalgia. The Company was founded by prominent and highly regarded scientists in the field of sleep disorder research and has proprietary rights to the worlds' most advanced sleep-wake drug discovery system, SCORE-2004(TM). The system is highly predictive of human response and allows high-throughput testing of drug candidates at the pre-clinical stage to optimize the next generation of safe, non-addictive therapies for this vast and untreated market.

Contacts

John F. Dee
President and CEO
Hypnion, Inc.
(781) 778-0212
jdee@hypnion.com

Michael E. Fitzgerald
Chief Financial Officer
Hypnion, Inc.
(781) 778-0216
mfitzgerald@hypnion.com