Brook Invests $2.0 million in HistoRX

Brook’s investment will boost sales of targeted drug therapies and diagnositc tests

Wakefield, MA May 16, 2006 – Brook Venture Partners (“Brook”) announces that it has recently closed on the first tranche of a $2,000,000 investment in HistoRx of New Haven, CT. Other Institutional co-investors in HistoRX include Navigator Technology Ventures and Genentech, Inc. HistoRx has commercialized a technology originally developed at Yale Medical School used in the development of targeted drug therapies which are driving the evolution of personalized medicine. The Company’s new generation of predictive companion diagnostic tests can rapidly identify, validate and spatially map proteomic biomarkers in tissue samples, and translate these results into practical clinical applications for the treatment of breast cancer and other diseases. HistoRx’s customers, which include well known pharmaceutical companies such as Genentech, Lilly, and Pfizer, use the Company’s diagnostic tests in the development of individually targeted drugs. According to Fred Morris, at Brook Venture Partners: “This Company’s success is driving major developments in the field of targeted medicine and personalized therapies, which will produce better outcomes with fewer side effects”.

For example, the Company is working with a major pharmaceutical customer to develop a new diagnostic test which will identify a segment of breast cancer patients that will most likely respond to a new drug which is being developed as a targeted therapy. This contrasts with the current approach in which a single therapeutic drug is used for all the subpopulations of breast cancer which results in treatment of patients that will not respond yet may exhibit the toxicity associated with standard cancer drugs. According to Morris, the company will use this funding to develop their own diagnostic reagents and tests which are being discovered as part of the company’s current work with large pharmaceutical customers. “The company has made a breakthrough in pathology which permits a much more rapid and effective drug discovery process. Building on this initial success the Company is now producing its own proprietary diagnostic reagents and tests which further enhance the opportunity to develop personalized medicine.”

Bob Curtis, founder and CEO of HistoRx indicates that Brook not only has been able to provide necessary financial support but will also provide the company with important strategic support: “We are delighted with Brook Venture’s investment in HistoRx. Brook’s reputation for working with high quality operating companies will add a new dimension to our team.”

HistoRx’s proprietary technology was developed by and designed for pathologists and targets more than 5,000 reference and clinical pathology laboratories in the U.S., as well as similar laboratories in Europe and throughout the world. The Company’s AQUA™ platform employs proprietary imaging technology that can simultaneously quantitate protein biomarkers in tissue and maintain their spatial context, a level of information not previously available to medical researchers and practitioners. As Bob Curtis notes: “The AQUA™ platform is a discovery engine for identifying, validating, and developing new predictive companion diagnostic tests and has already generated novel tests that are in development by HistoRx.”

About HistoRx, Inc.
HistoRx is a tissue-based in vitro diagnostics company established to develop and commercialize a new generation of tests that provide an unprecedented level of critical information for both pharmaceutical R&D and individualized patient care. HistoRx was founded based on research performed at the internationally recognized Department of Pathology at the Yale University School of Medicine. The Company’s Automated Quantitative Analysis (AQUA™) platform for quantitative pathology localizes and measures disease-specific variations in protein expression (biomarkers) within tissues. It is used in drug discovery and development, disease detection and diagnosis, and clinical pathology and patient care, as well as to automatically score tissue samples, do multiplex analysis, measure tissue properties, and reveal protein variants. HistoRx’s initial disease focus is cancer, which routinely requires the analysis of biopsied tissue. www.historx.com

About Brook Venture Partners
Brook Venture Partners provides expansion stage capital through Brook Venture Fund I & II, to information technology and medical technology companies based in the Northeastern United States. Brook focuses on investments of $1-5 million and seeks out companies located within underserved markets. Brook is headquartered outside Boston in Wakefield, Massachusetts. For more information, call 781-295-4000 or visit www.brookventure.com.