AVALON PHARMACEUTICALS ANNOUNCES EXPIRATION OF THE SANOFI-AVENTIS AGREEMENT

Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of small molecule therapeutics, today announced the expiration of its agreement with sanofi-aventis. The agreement in December 2003 established a collaboration to utilize molecular cytogenetics to identify and validate oncology targets. The agreement expired as a result of sanofi- aventis' decision not to advance targets that were a focus of the collaboration for further validation.

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