LION bioscience Launches a New Version of SRS to Serve a Broader Market

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & HEIDELBERG, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 22, 2004--

-- LION Releases SRS Version 8.0

“The product has undergone a core technology change and has been enhanced extensively. This version of SRS reflects the growing trends within the life science industry to work within a web services environment and to adopt standard rather than proprietary technology”

-- SRS Technology Standardized to Web Services, Reducing IT Infrastructure Complexity

-- New Features, Including Enhanced User Interface, Improve Usability

LION bioscience (Nasdaq: LEON) today announced the release of SRS 8.0. SRS is now based on today's IT standards, Web Services and JavaServer Pages. The enhancement of Web services to SRS reduces IT infrastructure complexity, allowing for even more efficient and flexible integration of SRS into corporate environments. SRS provides integrated access to all life science data, bringing together the different disciplines in R&D, and allowing scientists to make faster and more accurate decisions in drug discovery.

The launch of SRS 8.0 marks significant new developments. "The product has undergone a core technology change and has been enhanced extensively. This version of SRS reflects the growing trends within the life science industry to work within a web services environment and to adopt standard rather than proprietary technology", said Dr. Thure Etzold, LION's Senior Vice President of Product Development. "More than 300 customers use SRS globally within the life sciences. We recognize that adoption of industry standard technology allows us to rapidly respond to users' needs and enables a wider cross-section of developers to customize SRS than ever before."

By working within a web services environment, SRS users can take advantage of distributed computing resources. This allows for easier deployment of analysis tools and leads to increased effectiveness within discovery processes dependent on bioinformatics. Due to the cross-language and cross-platform support that web services provides, more applications within corporate IT infrastructures can now access SRS, providing greater flexibility for data integration and exposing SRS to a broader user community.

SRS 8.0 also comes with an enhanced user interface, allowing for more intuitive querying for the bench scientist. This allows the user to work with pre-defined queries and includes an intuitive graphical interface for linking information thus simplifying the complexity of data sources. The new architecture provides greater customization flexibility when integrating data sources, and reduces the need to use proprietary technology allowing faster responses to scientists' needs.

Further information on LION's new SRS 8.0 is available at www.lionbioscience.com/srs.

About SRS

SRS is a proven, scalable and robust data integration platform that provides fast access to diverse life science data - genetic, protein, cellular, molecular and clinical - from public and proprietary sources, regardless of data format. SRS is used in over 300 commercial and academic sites delivering genomic data daily to thousands of users around the globe. SRS is the clear market leader for bioinformatics data integration, providing global bioinformatics platforms for pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly, Johnson&Johnson and AstraZeneca, as well as forming the basis of genomics portals for leading data providers such as Celera, Incyte and Derwent.

About LION bioscience

LION bioscience (ISIN: DE0005043509, Reuters: LIOG, Bloomberg: LIO, Nasdaq: LEON) provides proven information and knowledge management solutions to significantly improve life science R&D performance and productivity. Since it was founded in 1997, the company has become a recognized leader in the area of life sciences informatics. LION has operations worldwide with its headquarter in Heidelberg, Germany, and offices in Cambridge, UK and Cambridge, MA, USA. LION's products are distributed by CTC Systems in Japan and DigiGenomics in Taiwan.

LION's (http://www.lionbioscience.com) solutions are used by more than 27,000 researchers at over 300 academic and industrial customers globally. LION's offerings include SRS for bioinformatics data access, LION Target Engine(TM) for target identification and validation, LION Lead Engine(TM) for lead identification and optimization, iDEA pkEXPRESS(TM) with analysis and prediction tools for ADME, and LION SolutionCenter(TM) professional services.

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release are forward looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and other applicable U.S. and German laws. These forward-looking statements may include projections, assumptions, estimates, targets, and descriptions of future events. Such statements are based on currently available information and on LION's current expectations as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Many factors could cause the actual results, performance or achievements of LION to be materially different from those that may be projected, expected, targeted, expressed or implied by such statements. All roll-out plans and future dates with respect to completion of development and market release of LION products are target dates only based on the company's current planning and may change in the future. Any delays in the current product release schedule will have a materially adverse effect on the company's targets for fiscal year. We refer you to LION's Annual Reports on Form 20-F, as recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 20, 2004 (Form 20-F/A), in which these and other risk factors are discussed. In the event of any material conflicts between the two documents, Form 20-F - resp. Form 20-F/A - should be relied on. LION expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates, revisions or corrections to any forward-looking statements or historical information contained in this announcement, whether as a result of new information, change of assumptions or business model, future developments or otherwise.