Affitech Contracts with ProBioGen for Producer Cell Line Generation

Berlin, Germany, and Oslo, Norway, 11 April 2007

ProBioGen AG, and Affitech AS, jointly announced today that they have entered into an agreement for a biopharmaceutical cell line to be developed by ProBioGen for high level production of one of the lead candidates in Affitech’s oncology therapeutic antibody pipeline.

Under the terms of the agreement, ProBioGen will apply its proven cell generation process for biopharmaceutical cell lines relying on the unique vectors and its pre-optimized CHO starter cell. This will be combined with automated cloning process to identify and develop a high producer line, which should be particularly suitable for a fed-batch development process. Financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed.

"Our unique approach in developing high producer cell lines combined with our royalty free business model is very attractive to our customers and provides them with one of the crucial key features for a successful production process.” said Michael Schlenk, CEO at ProBioGen AG.

Announcing the agreement Dr. Martin Welschof, CEO of Affitech said: "While several of our in-house discovered human antibodies are in various stages of preclinical development, in order to meet the demands of our ambitious clinical program for oncology antibody therapeutics, we have chosen a partner who offers us a high degree of flexibility and a compatible service-based development model.”