December 14, 2009

Ness Ziona, Israel

Protein Production Services Ltd. (PPS) announced today that the company had been awarded a second year grant from Israel's prestigious Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) program of support for industrial R&D. The grant was designated by the OCS to partially fund the continuation of Factor VIIa process development and production program, as a part of the company's platform of "Biosimilars Plus". Any income to PPS deriving from the sales of the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) will be liable for the payment of royalties to the OCS. The royalty payments are based upon a percentage of sales up to the repayment of the grant.

Mr. Meir Azulay, CEO and Founder of PPS, said: "Awarding a second year grant to our project is a vote of confidence in PPS, and we are proud and grateful to the OSC. PPS will continue to excel in its services and its platform development as part of its vision and strategy."

About Protein Production Services (PPS) Ltd: PPS, established in 2005, is an Israeli CRO/CMO for process development, production and purification of recombinant proteins. The company is dedicated to providing high quality services to accelerate product development, including scalable manufacturing capabilities for its customers and business partners. The company's customers are biotech companies as well as large pharmaceutical companies that develop protein-based drugs, including growth factors, enzymes, cytokines and antibodies. In addition PPS is developing its own products. PPS is located at the Weizmann Science Park of Ness-Ziona/Rehovot in a modern site of over 1000 m2.

PPS is a unique company of its kind in Israel. It operates as a one-stop-shop for its customers from cloning to cGMP production for phase I/II clinical trials, and has the capacity to produce in bacteria and mammalian cells. As a long-term strategy the company intends to become a manufacturer of API, and to build up new facilities in Israel for this purpose. As part of the long-term plan, PPS is already developing its own platform of products, both innovative as well as "Biosimilar Plus".

About Factor VIIa: Factor VII (FVII) is a serine protease which takes an important part in the coagulation cascade.  It is activated to FVIIa by several proteases upon bleeding. Recombinant human FVIIa has been introduced for use in uncontrollable bleeding in hemophilia patients that have developed inhibitors against other replacement coagulation factors, and is being increasingly used in uncontrollable hemorrhage.  It is currently being manufactured and marketed by NovoNordisk and commercialized as NovoSeven®. It is a vitamin K-dependent glycoprotein consisting of 406 amino acid residues (MW 50 KDalton). PPS will develop and produce the API of FVIIa as a Biosimilar, but formulate it and/or use it for different indications than the current product ("Biosimilar plus") in collaboration with other companies.