Biacore establishes a new pharmaceutical & biotechnology industry business unit

BIACORE ESTABLISHES A NEW PHARMACEUTICAL & BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY BUSINESS UNIT New Unit to be located in Switzerland, at the Centre of Europe's Pharmaceutical Industry Uppsala, Sweden, 30 May, 2000. Biacore today announces confirmation of its plans to set up a new business unit to manage both the operational activities and strategic development of its business with the pharmaceutical industry. A key objective of this new unit is to ensure that Biacore achieves its goal of becoming a major technology supplier to the drug discovery industry. In addition, the unit will take responsibility for the management and integration of a broader portfolio of applications for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, both existing and in development. In this way, Biacore aims to provide detailed biological analysis right through the R&D value chain, from early discovery through QC and Validation to manufacture. The new operation will be located in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. This location was chosen because * of its proximity to a large number of European pharmaceutical and biotech companies. These companies are important to Biacore both as customers and as potential collaboration partners, * it will enhance the company's ability to recruit highly qualified and experienced personnel, given the large pool of people with international pharmaceutical industry experience who reside in this area, * it provides a stronger platform for Biacore's international communications. Mr Julian Abery, currently Marketing Manager Drug Discovery at Biacore, has been appointed Vice President and Head of this new business unit. Mr Abery, who joined Biacore in 1998, has played a key role in the success that the company has achieved to-date in building its sales and collaborations with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Prior to joining Biacore he worked for the UK biotechnology company Xenova, where he was a member of the Xenova Discovery Management Team. Mr Abery will be responsible for the day to day running of this operation and will be tasked with building the management structure needed to oversee the rapid growth that Biacore expects from supplying its products to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Initially, he will also oversee the unit's business development and marketing activities. Given the importance of the overall pharmaceutical/biotech opportunity to Biacore's growth ambitions, Mr Lars-Goran Andren, the Executive Chairman of Biacore will also be re-locating to Switzerland in order to support the initial development of this new business unit. In addition, as was recently communicated, his major focus will remain the overall strategic development of Biacore with particular emphasis on alliances and collaborations. Commenting on today's announcement Dr Ulf Jönsson, President of Biacore said, "Our decision to set up a separate Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology business unit clearly underlines Biacore's commitment to become a major technology supplier to the pharmaceutical/biotech industries. I am delighted that Julian will be leading this effort. His experience of the industry and our technology will ensure that we will be able to rapidly build on our undoubted success in this major business area that has been evident over the last year. The progress that we have made to-date with the BIACORE® 3000 system along with the prospects for our new high performance systems and our unique SPR array chip technology give me great confidence that this area will be the major source of the company's growth over the next five years. The business unit's location in Switzerland will enable us to tap into the vibrant central European biotech sector as well as offer us access to some of the major global pharmaceutical companies, so complementing our established R&D operation in Sweden." - Ends - Notes to editors: 1 Biacore is a global market leader in affinity-based biosensor technology with its own sales operations in the U.S., across Europe, in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. A strong patent portfolio protects the technology. Target groups consist primarily of medical and life science research laboratories and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies all over the world. Biacore focuses on drug discovery as the prime area for future growth. The company currently has five systems on the market with its BIACORE® 3000 system offering specific application in drug discovery processes upstream of high-throughput screening (HTS). A new high- performance system, currently in development, will focus on applications downstream of HTS. Future SPR array screening systems will further strengthen Biacore's product portfolio across a wide range of biological applications. Based in Uppsala, Sweden, the company is listed on the OM Stockholm Exchange and Nasdaq in the U.S. In 1999 the company had sales of SEK 340.4 million and an operating income of SEK 67.6 million. Further information on Biacore can be found on the Company's web site: http://www.biacore.com Address and phone: Biacore International AB Rapsgatan 7, SE-754 50 Uppsala, SWEDEN Phone: +46 (0) 18 67 57 00 Fax: +46 (0) 18 15 01 11 info@biacore.com ------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit http://www.bit.se for further information The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/05/30/20000530BIT00730/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/05/30/20000530BIT00730/bit0002.pdf