President and Chief Executive Officer Synta

All preclinical, clinical, and commercial costs will be paid by Roche. Synta will receive $25 million in upfront cash license fees and committedresearch support, of which $9 million will be provided in the form of researchsupport over the initial research period. Synta will also be eligible to receiveadditional payments, for each of three licensed products, should specifieddevelopment and commercialization milestones be successfully achieved.Development milestones across multiple indications of up to $245 million couldbe earned for the first product, and up to half of this amount could be earnedfor each of the second and third products. Commercialization milestones of up to$170 million could be earned for each of three products. Synta will receivetiered royalties on sales of all approved, marketed products. "This agreement underscores both the potential of our novel ion channelinhibitors and the ability of the Synta drug discovery platform to generatehigh-quality, first-in-class drug candidates," said Safi Bahcall, Ph.D.,President and Chief Executive Officer, Synta.

"We believe that combining ourleadership in the CRACM inhibitor field with Roches expertise in inflammatorydiseases will enable us to accelerate the development of an exciting newtherapeutic category for patients." "Synta has the most advanced programme in the field, with its lead candidate andother promising drug candidates soon progressing into the clinic," said SatwantNarula, Roches Head of Discovery for Inflammation. "The CRACM channel inhibitorapproach has tremendous potential to treat rheumatoid arthritis and a wide rangeof other inflammatory diseases that have a high unmet need for oral, targeted,disease-modifying agents. Roche and Synta will work closely together to bringthese potential therapies to patients." "The Synta CRACM inhibitor program generated substantial interest among manyleading global pharmaceutical companies. We believe this interest reflects thegrowing scientific excitement around the CRACM target; the size of theopportunity presented by a new category of disease-modifying agents forinflammation; and the strength of the Synta intellectual property portfolio anddrug discovery capabilities," added Albert Hsia, Ph.D., Senior Director,Business Development, Synta. "We are enthusiastic about working with Roche in analliance that combines the strengths of our two companies within a collaborativeframework for rapid development of these promising CRACM inhibitor compounds." About Ion Channel TherapeuticsIon channels, the gateways in cell membranes that regulate the flow of ions intoand out of cells, play important roles in cell signaling.

Certain ion channelsallow electrically excitable cells, such as neurons or muscle cells, todischarge. Drugs that modulate these ion channels have proven to be a successfultherapeutic category, with dozens of such drugs on the market and commonlyprescribed for the treatment of various neurological and cardiovasculardisorders. The Synta research program targets an ion channel known as the CRACM channel,which is believed to play a key role specifically in immune cells rather than inneurons or muscle cells. CRACM channels regulate the calcium signaling pathwaydriving immune cell activation and secretion of TNF-alpha, IL-2, and otherinflammatory factors.

In contrast to calcineurin, CRACM channels are believed to becritical exclusively to immune cell function. CRACM inhibitors therefore havethe potential to achieve potent anti-inflammatory activity with an improvedsafety profile, creating a new category of disease-modifying agents comparableto biologic agents, such as TNF-alpha inhibitors, but orally available. The Synta CRACM channel inhibitors have shown strong anti-inflammatory activityin preclinical studies both in vitro and in vivo, inhibiting T cell and mastcell activity, including cytokine release, degranulation, and immune cellproliferation. Potential applications include a wide range of inflammatorydiseases and disorders for which modulating T cell and mast cell function hasbeen shown to be critical, including rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, chronicobstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), allergy, transplant rejection, and otherautoimmune diseases and inflammatory conditions CRACM Channel ReferencesVig, M., and Kinet, J.P Calcium signaling in immune cells Nat Immunol 10,21-7 (2009) Feske, S., Prakriya, M., Rao, A., and Lewis, R.S. Depletion of intracellular calcium stores activates acalcium current in mast cells Nature 355, 353-6 (1992) About Synta PharmaceuticalsSynta Pharmaceuticals Corp. is a biopharmaceutical company focused ondiscovering, developing, and commercializing small-molecule drugs to extend andenhance the lives of patients with severe medical conditions, including cancerand chronic inflammatory diseases.