German Association of Pharmacists (ABDA) Announce a Collaborative Programme with Aegate to Evaluate System to Protect Patients from Counterfeit Medicines

LONDON, February 9 - Aegate today announced, in conjunction with the Federal Union of German
Associations of Pharmacists (ABDA) a collaborative programme to evaluate the
impact and benefits of an authentication system in Germany. In addition,
Aegate has presented the programme to the Bundesverband der Pharmazeutischen
Industrie (the German Pharmaceutical Association, BPI), and has discussed
the programme in detail with BPI members.

Aegate's service, which is already fully operational in Belgium, Greece,
and Italy, enables individual medicinal packs to be authenticated by the
pharmacist before dispensing, confirming items are in date, not recalled or
potentially counterfeit. The system also provides the latest drug safety
information to pharmacists whilst dispensing, greatly empowering the role of
the pharmacist.

The flexibility of Aegate's system enabled some key criteria to be
fulfilled; ABDA and the BPI required this authentication programme to
co-exist with the current reimbursement framework that is in place for
Germany; they wished to be able to evaluate a 2D Data-matrix serialisation
technology and also needed a simple deployment for pharmacists. Aegate's
system seamlessly integrates into the existing dispensary software that
pharmacists use, ensuring easy and fast installation for pharmacies.

"The fight against counterfeit drugs is one of the most important efforts
in protecting consumers," says ABDA President Heinz-Guenter Wolf:
"Pharmacists are currently making a major contribution to ensuring that
patients are provided with drugs that are suitable for dispense. To be
prepared in the future against the growing international crime of forgery in
the highly profitable drugs market, we started this project to test a
technology that can provide even more safety for the public".

Prior to full scale implementation, the programme will last around seven
months and include numerous pharmacies throughout Germany as well as 15
pharmaceutical manufacturers and wholesalers.

The timing of this programme and Aegate's open approach to working with
pharmacy and industry associations who have a variety of existing
pharmaceutical frameworks for dispensing medicine, will enable a greater
number of member states to evaluate and install authentication systems in
line with the forthcoming European Commission's directive on counterfeit
medicines. The directive, which seeks mandatory safety features that will
permit identification, authentication and traceability on all packs of
medicine, is due to be completed during 2010.

For a copy of the full press release issued by ABDA or further details please contact: Will Campbell, Band & Brown Communications, +44(0)20-7419-7000, Will.Campbell at bbpr.com