Cytokinetics Completes Mezzanine Stage Financing

Two New Board Members Named

South San Francisco, CA - April 28, 2003

Cytokinetics, Inc., a privately held biotechnology company focused on cytoskeletal drug discovery and development in the areas of oncology, cardiovascular disease and anti-fungal therapeutics, announced today that it has completed a Series E Preferred Stock financing totaling $40 million. These funds will be used to continue to grow Cytokinetics’ capabilities in clinical development and pre-commercialization planning.

“With this level of investment,” stated James Sabry, M.D., Ph.D., Cytokinetics’ President and Chief Executive Officer, “Cytokinetics is well positioned to capitalize on our rapid and promising drug discovery progress as well as to advance the clinical development of our lead oncology and cardiovascular programs through important proof of concept validation in human studies. We are anticipating the filing of INDs for two additional, proprietary drug candidates this year. Furthermore, Cytokinetics and GlaxoSmithKline have begun Phase I evaluation of the first novel anti-cancer drug candidate emerging from our collaboration and expect to expand clinical development upon completion of these studies.”

Both existing and new investors participated in this later stage private equity round of financing. New investors in this round include General American Investors, HBM BioVentures, PRM Ventures and Mizuho Capital. Existing investors participating in this round include Sevin Rosen, CSFB Private Equity, Alta Partners, Mayfield Fund, Vulcan Ventures, GlaxoSmithKline and others.

“Given the current climate in the capital markets, we are especially pleased by this oversubscribed financing, which was completed ahead of schedule and on terms that reflect the increasing value our company continues to provide to our investors,” stated Robert Blum, Cytokinetics’ Senior Vice President of Finance and Corporate Development and Chief Financial Officer. “This financing strengthens our balance sheet and affords us the resources required to fund co-development options under our GlaxoSmithKline collaboration and to rapidly and responsibly move unpartnered programs forward into human testing.”

The company also announced that Charles Homcy, M.D. and Michael Schmertzler will be joining the Board of Directors effective immediately.

Dr. Homcy is currently serving as a senior advisor and a member of the Board of Directors at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where he served as President of Research and Development until recently. Before joining Millennium, Dr. Homcy held the position of Executive Vice President of Research and Development and was on the Board of Directors at COR Therapeutics. Dr. Homcy has been a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine and an attending physician at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. Prior to joining COR, Dr. Homcy was President of the Medical Research Division of American Cyanamid Company-Lederle Laboratories (now a division of Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories). He also served as Executive Director of the Cardiovascular and Central Nervous System Research Section at Lederle Laboratories. In addition, during his time at Lederle, Dr. Homcy also was an attending physician at The Presbyterian Hospital, College of Physicians and Surgeons, at Columbia University in New York. Prior to that, he was an attending physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Homcy received his B.A. and his M.D. degrees from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Mr. Schmertzler is a Managing Director of Aries Advisors, LLC, sub-advisor to Credit Suisse First Boston Equity Partners, LLC and its affiliates, and the Chair of the Investment Committee of those funds. Mr. Schmertzler is an Adjunct Professor at Yale University. Prior to Aries, Mr. Schmertzler was Co-Head of U.S. and Canadian Private Equity at Credit Suisse First Boston. Prior to Credit Suisse First Boston, Mr. Schmertzler was the President of the Morgan Stanley Leveraged Capital Funds and Morgan Stanley Leveraged Equity Fund II, as well as a Managing Director in that firm’s mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance departments. Mr. Schmertzler had previously been the Head of International Investment Banking and International Institutional Sales and Trading at Shearson Lehman American Express and a member of that firm’s Board of Directors. Prior to that, he was Chief Financial Officer, a Managing Director, and an investment banker at Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb Incorporated. Mr. Schmertzler currently serves on the boards of Idenix Pharmaceuticals, PTC Therapeutics, Segway, Triad Therapeutics and Zyomyx; he is a designated board observer at Sunesis Pharmaceuticals and is a Trustee of the National Outdoor Leadership School. Mr. Schmertzler received his B.A. from Yale College in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, History, and City Planning. He attended the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and received an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.

“We are excited to have both Charles and Michael join our Board of Directors,” added James Sabry. “We look forward to sharing their broad industry experience, particularly in clinical and corporate development, which will be critical to our organization as we continue our transition towards drug development and commercialization.”

About Cytokinetics

Founded in 1998 and privately held, Cytokinetics is dedicated to the discovery, development and commercialization of a novel class of therapeutics resulting from its leadership position in the emerging field of cytoskeletal pharmacology. The cytoskeleton is a complex, dynamic framework that impacts all aspects of cell function including cell division, cell motility, intracellular transport, muscle contractility and regulation of cellular organization. Cytokinetics’ R&D efforts aim to address pharmaceutical needs in cancer, cardiovascular and infectious diseases and feature proprietary Cytometrix™ cellular phenotyping technologies designed to industrialize cell biology for increased speed and productivity in drug discovery and development. Cytokinetics and GlaxoSmithKline have entered into a broad strategic collaboration to discover, develop and commercialize novel small molecule therapeutics targeting mitotic kinesins for applications in the treatment of cancer and other diseases. Cytokinetics and GlaxoSmithKline have begun Phase I studies with the first novel anti-cancer drug candidate emerging from the collaboration and expect to expand clinical development upon completion of these studies. The company is building a promising pipeline of next-generation drug candidates arising from other internal pharmaceutical research programs and is planning the initiation of clinical studies for other potential first-in-class compounds. Additional information about Cytokinetics can be obtained at www.cytokinetics.com.