Recent Appointments at Roche in Palo Alto

Palo Alto, Calif., May 14, 2002 -- Roche announced the following appointments at the Roche Bioscience research & development center in Palo Alto:

• Michelle Browner, Ph.D., has been promoted to the position of vice president of core sciences in the Inflammatory and Viral Diseases Unit. In this position, Browner leads the technology sciences for drug discovery groups, including protein production and cell core, high throughput screening, transgenics, imaging, computational chemistry and X-ray crystallography. She reports to Robert Booth, senior vice president and head of the Inflammatory and Viral Diseases Unit. Browner was previously director, research core sciences.
• Paul Kopeck, has been appointed vice president, regulatory affairs and project management. He manages the Neurobiology Unit project management group and the Roche Bioscience regulatory affairs and good manufacturing practice (GMP) compliance groups. Kopeck reports to Ian Massey, senior vice president and head of the Neurobiology Unit. Kopeck previously held the position of director of regulatory affairs.
• Hans Maag, Ph.D., has been appointed vice president of medicinal chemistry for the Neurobiology Business Unit. Maag is responsible for medicinal chemistry, parallel synthesis, and computational chemistry in Neurobiology. He reports to Ian Massey, senior vice president and head of Neurobiology. Maag was previously director of medicinal chemistry.

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world’s premier research-based healthcare groups. With leading businesses in pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and vitamins, Roche offers a uniquely broad range of products and services that span prevention, diagnosis and treatment, thus enhancing health, well being and quality of life. Roche invests nearly 4 billion Swiss francs, or about $2.4 billion, annually in research and development. Its research focuses on significant unmet medical needs in the management of diseases of the central nervous system and genitourinary tract, metabolic disorders, inflammation, bone diseases, cancer, vascular diseases and virology. Roche employs approximately 7,000 people in research and development and has five global pharmaceutical research centers located in Basel, Switzerland; Kamakura, Japan; Penzburg, Germany; Nutley, N.J., and Palo Alto, Calif.

The Roche Bioscience research center in Palo Alto, Calif., focuses on the discovery and early clinical development of innovative medicines to treat diseases in the following areas: arthritis, asthma and other respiratory diseases; anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric diseases; genitourinary diseases, osteoporosis, HIV/AIDS, and hepatitis C.

Following are URLs for Roche on the web:

Global website: www.roche.com.

U.S. pharmaceuticals business: www.rochusa.com.

Roche Bioscience: http://paloalto.roche.com

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