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Conor Medsystems Announces $28 Million Private Financing and Appoints three New Board Members

Menlo Park, California, October 30, 2003 - Conor Medsystems, Inc., a medical device company developing vascular stents for controlled local drug delivery to coronary and peripheral vessels, today announced that it received $28 million in funding in its second institutional round of financing. Existing investor Easton Hunt Capital Partners led the round and was joined by existing investor Highland Capital and new investors Hambrecht & Quist Capital Management, Maverick Capital, Radius Ventures, and Brookside Capital, an affiliate of Bain Capital. Musket Research Associates served as financial advisor and placement agent for the transaction.

In conjunction with the financing, the company appointed three new members to the Board of Directors: John Friedman of Easton Hunt Capital Partners; Frank Gentile, Ph.D., Vice President of Research at Hambrecht & Quist Capital Management; and George Milne, Ph.D., Venture Partner at Radius Ventures and the former Executive Vice President of Research and Development at Pfizer Inc.

"We have made significant progress both in the development of our core stent and polymer technologies as well as in our clinical programs," said Frank Litvack, M.D., Chairman and CEO of Conor. "This additional capital enables us to continue to execute our strategy to become a technical leader in stent platform and drug delivery capabilities for a broad range of therapeutic compounds, and to rapidly develop and commercialize our products for interventional cardiologists worldwide. We also welcome our newest Board members who add tremendous business, scientific and pharmaceutical expertise to Conor."

"We are very pleased to be leading this financing for Conor Medsystems," said John Friedman, Managing Partner at Easton Hunt Capital Partners. "We are enthusiastic about Conor's revolutionary stent technology and its first-rate management team, which has a superlative record of success in creating successful new companies and developing new technologies. We look forward to working with this strong group of investors and serving on the company's Board of Directors."

Easton Hunt Capital Partners
Easton Hunt Capital Partners, L.P. (EHCP), with offices in New York and Florida, is a venture capital/private equity fund investing in early and late stage venture capital transactions and management buyouts. Healthcare has been one of the Fund's key areas of focus, with a concentration on transactions in the medical device, drug discovery, and drug delivery arenas. EHCP's target investments are well-managed companies characterized by differentiated products addressing major underserved markets.

Conor Medsystems, Inc.
Conor Medsystems, Inc. is a medical device company that is developing stents as delivery platforms for controlled local delivery of a wide variety of therapeutic agents. Conor has two multicenter clinical studies of its paclitaxel eluting stent underway, one of which is a pivotal trial to be used for regulatory approval and CE mark in Europe. Conor's proprietary technologies allow release profiles to be tailored specifically to the requirements of a drug and enable the delivery of multiple compounds to various sites in the body.

Conor Medsystems is positioned to become a technical, clinical, and commercial leader in the emerging field of local drug delivery via next generation medical devices. The company's initial focus is on the treatment of restenosis and vascular disease, a market expected to exceed $4 billion by 2006. The company is also exploring applications in peripheral vascular disease and additional indications where controlled drug release from a medical device is expected to provide therapeutic advantages.