Novasep and instrAction Enter Into a Worldwide Strategic Alliance for Non-Chiral Chromatography

Combination of instrAction and Novasep know-how sets a new standard for small molecule purification processes for the life science industries

POMPEY, France and LUDWIGSHAFEN, Germany, July 22, 2010 - Novasep, a leading supplier of manufacturing solutions to
the life science industries, and instrAction, a manufacturer of innovative
chromatographic stationary phases for API purification processes, today
announced that they have entered into a strategic alliance. The alliance will
offer customers in the pharmaceutical industry a unique combination of
instrAction's proprietary API-selective stationary phases (Instruction(R)
Receptor Phase) and Novasep purification capabilities and high performance
chromatography technologies. These will be used to develop and operate or
supply optimized large scale chromatography processes for purifying synthetic
and semi-synthetic compounds.

This combined approach will provide a purification process or
service with guaranteed, optimized and cost-effective performance. It will
enable pharmaceutical companies using Novasep's and instrAction's services to
secure key process intellectual property for their valuable molecules
including new molecular entities and generic active pharmaceutical
ingredients (API).

For each customer molecule, at the customer's option,
instrAction will identify the API-selective stationary phase most appropriate
to customer needs from its library of over 3,000 phases - constantly expanded
by new prototypes - and perform process optimization services assisted by
Novasep with the latter's unique computer simulation software. Depending on
individual customer requirements, there will be two options after
development: either purification and if required synthesis by Novasep, or
transfer of the process to the customer including the supply of a turnkey
chromatography process system with guaranteed performance by Novasep and the
supply of the API-selective stationary phase by instrAction.

"With the ever-increasing complexity of pharmaceutical
compounds, traditional purification processes including crystallization, and
even normal or reversed phase chromatography, are often too expensive, and,
worse, ineffective," says Rene De Vaumas, Executive Vice President in charge
of Novasep Synthesis' business development. "instrAction's API-selective
stationary phases have already demonstrated dramatically improved
purification costs for several difficult-to-purify compounds at medium to
large scale. We are looking forward to expanding their use to provide our
customers with a substantial benefit compared with traditional purification
processes," he added.

"We are delighted at our extended collaboration with Novasep,
the undisputed leader of industrial chromatography in the pharmaceutical
industry," said Dr. Thomas Schwarz, CEO of instrAction GmbH. "We believe that
together, instrAction and Novasep will develop solutions that will provide
great improvement in the purification of a number of pharmaceutical
compounds. Moreover, we believe that our joint approach with a single point
of contact and streamlined project management will help reduce process
development timelines."

About Novasep

Novasep develops, markets and operates innovative technologies
providing life science industries with safe and cost-effective production of
active molecules. The global manufacturing solutions offered by Novasep
include process development services; purification equipment and systems;
contract manufacturing services; and complex active molecules. The
applications of Novasep's offering cover the pharmaceutical,
biopharmaceutical, food, functional ingredients and bio-industries markets.

The company has six FDA inspected manufacturing plants in
France, Germany and the Bahamas, two biopharmaceutical production sites in
Belgium, R&D and equipment manufacturing facilities in the USA, China and
France, and an office in Japan. It employs approximately 1,300 people and had
annual revenues of EUR 300 million in 2009. More than 2,000 systems designed
and produced by Novasep are currently purifying active molecules throughout
the world. The company holds more than 200 different patents covering its
technologies and processes.

www.novasep.com

About instrAction

instrAction, founded in 1997 by Dr. Klaus Gottschall and
located at the BASF site in Ludwigshafen, develops and manufactures
"Instruction(R) Receptor Phases" as novel API-selective resins for
chromatography. The Instruction(R) technology enables the immobilization of a
wide variety of functional ligands on a polymer network, coated on very
different porous backbone materials. Small molecules as well as substances
with high molecular weight are separated by highly selective reversible
interactions. The high selectivity of an instrAction stationary phase is
thereby reached by multivalent-multimodal interactions between target
molecule and the functional ligands of the phase, similar to the lock-and-key
principle.

www.instraction.com

Jean Bléhaut, at: +33-383-49-70-99, Jean.blehaut at novasep.com