Zealand Pharma

Major Shareholding Notification • Jan 6, 2015

Company Announcement No. 1/2015

Major shareholder announcement

Copenhagen, 6 January 2015 – Zealand Pharma (Nasdaq Copenhagen: ZEAL) ("Zealand") has received a major shareholder announcement from A/S Dansk Erhvervsinvestering, c/o Maj Invest A/S, Gammeltorv 18, 1457 Copenhagen K, Denmark.

Pursuant to the Danish Securities Act section 29, cf. executive order no. 224 of 13 March 2010 on major shareholders and the Danish Companies Act section 55, cf. section 56, it has been announced that A/S Dansk Erhvervsinvestering has sold 201.253 shares in Zealand Pharma A/S, and thereby reduced its ownership to 997.802 shares, corresponding to less than 5% of the company's share capital and voting rights.

A/S Dansk Erhvervsinvestering has been a share holder in Zealand since 1999. In late 2006, the company was turned into a "closed-end fund" and has not since made new investments.

***

For further information, please contact:

Hanne Leth Hillman, Vice President and Head of IR & Corporate Communications Tel: +45 5060 3689, email: hlh@zealandpharma.com

About Zealand Pharma

Zealand Pharma A/S ("Zealand") (Nasdaq Copenhagen: ZEAL) is a biotechnology company based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Zealand has leading expertise in the discovery, design and development of novel peptide medicines and in-house competences also in clinical trial design and management with a therapeutic focus on metabolic diseases and acute care indications. The company is advancing a proprietary pipeline of novel medicines alongside a partnered product and development portfolio.

Zealand's first invented medicine, lixisenatide (a once-daily prandial GLP-1 agonist) is marketed globally (ex-US) by Sanofi as Lyxumia® for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes. Sanofi also has the product in Phase III development as a single-injection combination with Lantus® (LixiLan) under a global license agreement. US regulatory filing of Lyxumia® is planned for summer 2015 and of LixiLan as early as end 2015.

Zealand proprietary pipeline includes danegaptide (prevention of ischemic reperfusion injury) and ZP4207 (a stable glucagon product to treat severe hypoglycemia) as well as several preclinical peptide therapeutics. Partnering represents an important component of strategy to leverage in-house expertise, share development risk in large clinical trials, provide funding and commercialize the company's products. Zealand currently has global license agreements and partnerships with Sanofi, Helsinn Healthcare, Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly.

For further information: www.zealandpharma.com Follow us on Twitter @ZealandPharma

Zealand Pharma A/S