Caroline Loewy Joins Corcept as Chief Financial Officer

MENLO PARK, CA--(Marketwire - December 2, 2008) - Corcept Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CORT) today announced the appointment of Caroline M. Loewy to the position of Chief Financial Officer. She will oversee Corcept's financial operations, business development activities, investor relations, and along with other members of the management team, corporate strategy.

"We are pleased to have a person with Caroline's financial and biopharmaceutical industry expertise join us at Corcept," said Joseph K. Belanoff, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Corcept Therapeutics. "Caroline's broad experience will be valuable to Corcept during this significant period in our Company's evolution, as we move CORLUX toward the market with our two ongoing Phase III programs, and advance our second generation selective GRII antagonists into clinical development."

Ms. Loewy most recently served as Chief Financial Officer of Poniard Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company, where she was a key driver of that company's corporate strategy, visibility among investors, and led several successful financings. From 2004-2006 she acted as an independent consultant to a variety of biopharmaceutical companies advising on corporate strategy, business development, and financing. Ms. Loewy spent 14 years in equity research and corporate finance. From 2000-2004 she was an Executive Director in biotechnology equity research at Morgan Stanley, providing fundamental analysis and recommendations to investors, as well as strategic advisory services to corporate clients. She was also a Managing Director in biotechnology equity research at Prudential Securities and held positions in corporate finance at BankAmerica. Ms. Loewy holds a BA degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA/MS degree from Carnegie Mellon University.

About Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated

Corcept is a pharmaceutical company engaged in the development of drugs for the treatment of severe psychiatric and metabolic disorders. The company's lead programs are the development of CORLUX for the treatment of the psychotic symptoms of psychotic depression and for Cushing's Syndrome. Both of the programs are in Phase 3.

Corcept has also developed an extensive intellectual property portfolio that covers the use of GRII antagonists in the treatment of a wide variety of psychiatric and metabolic disorders, including the prevention of weight gain caused by the use of antipsychotic medication. The company has also discovered and filed patents for the three different series of compounds which block cortisol's activity at the GRII receptor but do not block the progesterone receptor. CORT 108297, a potential lead compound from these series, recently produced encouraging results in a human microdosing study. The compound was extremely well absorbed, demonstrated good bioavailability and had a half-life that appears compatible with once-a-day oral dosing.

Statements made in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements, including, for example, statements relating to Corcept's clinical development and research programs. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties that might cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. For example, there can be no assurances with respect to the cost, rate of spending, completion or success of clinical trials; financial projections may not be accurate; there can be no assurances that Corcept will pursue further activities with respect to the development of CORLUX, CORT 108297, or any of its other selective GR-II antagonists. These and other risk factors are set forth in the Company's SEC filings, all of which are available from our website (www.corcept.com) or from the SEC's website (www.sec.gov). We disclaim any intention or duty to update any forward-looking statement made in this news release.

Contact Information: CONTACT: Joseph K. Belanoff, M.D. Chief Executive Officer Corcept Therapeutics 650-327-3270 www.corcept.com