Aquinox Pharmaceuticals Announces Closing of Initial Public Offering

Full exercise of underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares for aggregate offering price of $53.1 millionRelease date: Wednesday, March 12, 2014PDF version: news-20140312.pdf

Vancouver, British Columbia – March 12, 2014 – Aquinox Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: AQXP) announced today the closing of its initial public offering of 4,830,000 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $11.00, which included 630,000 shares issued upon the exercise in full of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares. All of the shares of common stock were offered by Aquinox. The aggregate offering price was $53.1 million, before underwriting discounts, commissions and estimated expenses. The net proceeds from the sale of the shares, after deducting the underwriting discounts, commissions and other estimated offering expenses, will be approximately $47.0 million.

Jefferies LLC and Cowen and Company acted as joint book-running managers and Canaccord Genuity acted as co-manager for the offering.

A registration statement relating to these securities was declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 6, 2014. The offering was made only by means of a prospectus, final copies of which may be obtained by contacting Jefferies LLC, Attention: Equity Syndicate Prospectus Department, 520 Madison Avenue, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10022, telephone: 877-547-6340, e-mail: Prospectus_Department@Jefferies.com; or Cowen and Company, LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Services, Attention: Prospectus Department, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, Telephone: 631-274-2806, Fax: 631-254-7140.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.

About Aquinox Pharmaceuticals

Aquinox Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Aquinox”) is a clinical stage pharmaceutical company discovering and developing novel, small molecule therapeutics targeting SH2-containing inositol-5’-phosphatase 1 (“SHIP1“) for the treatment of inflammatory disease and cancer. For more information, please visit www.aqxpharma.com.

Contact Info:

Kamran Alam, VP Finance and CFO

Aquinox Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

604.629.9223

ir@aqxpharma.com

Jason Robertson, Director, Business Development

Aquinox Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

604.629.9223

info@aqxpharma.com