Dutch Public-Private Partnership Invests 28 Million Euro on Research Into Personalized Medicine

GELEEN-EINDHOVEN-LEIDEN, The Netherlands, February 15, 2010 - The Netherlands' three Top Institutes for life-science research (the
BioMedical Materials program, the Center for Translational Molecular Medicine
and Top Institute Pharma) today announced a joint investment of MEUR 28 on
innovative research targeted at bringing personalized medicine closer to
reality. The projects funded by the group will focus on developing new ways
of delivering drugs to specific disease sites within the human body, thereby
reducing the required doses, minimizing unwanted side effects and increasing
the drugs' effectiveness. Together with the development of tailored drug
therapies, the imaging guided and targeted drug delivery techniques that
these newly funded projects aim to develop, are widely regarded as one of the
keys to highly personalized medicine.

The 7 projects for which funding was announced today are mainly aiming
for therapies for cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Combined, they bring
together 12 knowledge institutes and 14 industrial parties. The projects
result from a joint call for project proposals that was initiated by the
three Top Institutes in recognition of the fact that imaging guided and
targeted drug delivery is a highly interdisciplinary area of research that
leverages their individual strengths - TI Pharma in drug development, CTMM in
molecular diagnostics and imaging, and BMM in biomaterials and regenerative
medicine. The 7 new projects are the first to encompass competencies from all
three institutes.

"With this joint initiative of the three public-private partnerships in
the Dutch life-sciences sector, the Netherlands stimulates collaboration and
cooperation between industry and academia on a size and scale that is unique
in Europe," says Wim Deetman, chairman of the Executive Board of the
BioMedical Materials (BMM) program.

"With the pattern of diseases such as cancer being different in virtually
every different patient, personalized medicine is absolutely essential to
improving patient outcomes," says Hans Hoogervorst, chairman of the
Supervisory Board of the Center for Translational Molecular Medicine (CTMM).
"The outstanding quality of the proposals selected from the joint call should
really help us to put personalized medicine into practice."

Ton Rijnders PhD, chairman of the Executive Board of TI Pharma says,
"This is a serious next step in bundling the strength of the three Top
Institutes. Also in other fields like education & training and communication,
BMM, CTMM, and TI Pharma will continue to cooperate and align their efforts."

The call for project proposals opened in June 2009 with a Joint Workshop
on Imaging Guided and Targeted Drug Delivery, after which submission of
proposals was invited. By the October 2009 deadline, 25 draft proposals had
been submitted, which subsequently resulted in 19 full proposals. Selection
of the 7 new projects that today received funding was based on peer review
and evaluation by a joint International Scientific Advisory Board (j-ISAB)
comprising of experts from around the world.

"I was impressed by the amount and quality of the submitted research
applications and by the critical assessment work done by the j-ISAB. It was a
delight to be involved in the selection of such an excellent portfolio of
research," says Professor Bob Lowenberg MD, PhD, chairman of the joint
International Scientific Advisory Board.

In total, BMM, CTMM and TI Pharma bring together over 180 national and
international partners from the public and private sector, as well as 4
charitable foundations. Together, the three institutes have a total budget of
almost 700 million Euro available for research projects over a 5-year period.
Fifty percent of the total funding budget is provided by the Dutch
government, with the remaining fifty percent being provided by the three
institutes' academic and industrial partners.

About BMM

The BioMedical Materials (BMM) program is a Netherlands based
public-private partnership, dedicated to enable breakthroughs in the
development and application of innovative biomedical materials. With a total
amount of 90 MEUR available, BMM's research agenda focuses on new therapies
and applications that prevent chronic organ and tissue failure, and
contribute to the improvement in patients' quality of life. Currently, BMM's
Young Investigator Call for proposals is ongoing.

Key figures BMM: 44 partners, MEUR 79 allocated budget, 13
projects/consortia

About CTMM

The Center for Translational Molecular Medicine (CTMM) is dedicated to
the development of molecular diagnostics and imaging technologies that enable
the design of new and "personalized" treatments for the main causes of
mortality and diminished quality of life (cancer and cardiovascular diseases
and, to a lesser extent, neurodegenerative and infectious-/autoimmune
diseases) and the rapid translation of these treatments to the patient.

CTMM is a public-private partnership that comprises a multidisciplinary
group of parties - universities, academic medical centers, medical technology
enterprises and chemical and pharmaceutical companies.

Key figures CTMM: 105 partners, MEUR 275 allocated budget, 21
projects/consortia

About TI Pharma

Top Institute Pharma (TI Pharma) is a public-private partnership in which
scientific and business worlds work together on groundbreaking,
multidisciplinary research aimed at improving the development of socially
valuable medicines. Their research portfolio is based on the disease areas as
specified in Priority Medicines, a report by the World Health Organization
(WHO). The knowledge gained in these projects provides an important
contribution to better, faster and less-expensive development of valuable new
medicines.

Key figures TI Pharma: 74 partners, MEUR 260 allocated budget, 50
projects/consortia

For more information:

Website: www.lifesciences.nl/jointcall

www.bmm-program.nl

www.ctmm.nl

www.tipharma.com

At BMM: D.M.J. Curfs PhD, phone +31(46)476-1333 / +31(6)3086-1483, danielle.curfs at bmm-program.nl; At CTMM: M.J. Kortas, +31(40)800-23-03 / +31(6)2940-9770, marjoke.kortas at ctmm.nl; At TI Pharma: I. van der Heijden +31(71)332-2036 / +31(6)4612-2482, ingeborg.vanderheijden at tipharma.com