Candidate Drug Designated

Medivir has reached a milestone in its HIV NNRTI research program and has now designated a clinical Candidate Drug (CD); MIV-170. Designation of a CD means that the project enters the preclinical development phase, which is the stage immediately prior to clinical trials. However, as communicated in December 2005, Medivir has the ambition of divesting or outlicensing its HIV, HBV and shingles polymerase projects through its subsidiary Medivir HIV Franchise AB. Accordingly, Medivir does not intend to invest additional internal resources in MIV-170. MIV-170 belongs to the NNRTI class of drugs, which constitutes one of the three components in contemporary standard treatment regimes for HIV/AIDS. These combination regimes presently offer a robust and efficacious therapy. However, in the long term, the problem of resistance development still remains and currently marketed triple combinations also give rise to side effects to various degrees. These shortfalls mean that there is still a place for the introduction of new and improved pharmaceuticals. The sales of NNRTI pharmaceuticals currently amount to around SEK 8 billion and the market is dominated by two products, Sustiva (Bristol Myer Squibb) and Viramune (Boehringer Ingelheim). MIV-170 is an exceptionally active inhibitor of both wild type and clinical NNRTI-resistant HIV viruses. MIV-170 therefore has very competitive properties in comparison to the established NNRTIs on the market. Additionally, compared to its competitors, the compound has very attractive properties in other areas, such as good bioavailability and pharmacokinetics. This is predictive that MIV-170 could be an efficacious HIV drug with once daily dosing. For additional information; please contact Rein Piir, CFO & VP, Investor Relations; +46 8 546 831 23 or +46 708 537 292 For additional information, please see Medivir’s website www.medivir.se