Coreo AG — M&A Activity 2008

May 26, 2008

News Details

Corporate | 26 May 2008 08:00

Nanostart Holding Curiox Establishes Sales Partnership in Korea with BioBud

Nanostart AG / Miscellaneous

Release of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a company of EquityStory
AG.
The issuer / publisher is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

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• First commercialization success for Curiox

• Further aggressive expansion planned in Asia

• Long-term sights set on EU and USA

Frankfurt / Singapore – May 26, 2008 – Curiox Biosystems Pte. Ltd. of
Singapore, an investment holding of Germany’s Nanostart AG, has entered
into a sales partnership agreement with Seoul-based BioBud Inc. covering
the exclusive distribution of the Curiox DropArray Rinsing Station in the
Republic of Korea. The patented technology platform from Curiox facilitates
the convenient and cost-efficient miniaturization of aqueous bioassays for
drug discovery and other life science applications. The technology from
Curiox enables a thousand-fold reduction in the amount of material and
reagent required while simultaneously reducing reaction time by a factor of
ten.

Sales are expected to reach several million U.S. dollars over the next
three years with potentially much larger revenues from new products
currently in the development pipeline. Korea is one of most active
countries in Asia in the biotech sector. According to the Bioindustry
Association of Korea, the size of its biotech market was USD 2.7 billion in
2006, with an annual growth rate of approx. 18%. Curiox’s DropArray product
line is expected to take advantage of this rapidly growing market.
Curiox’s products will help Korean customers compete more effectively in
this increasingly competitive market by reducing operating costs and time
significantly, while enabling challenging research projects with limited
samples and reagents.

Namyong Kim, CEO of Curiox, commented on the new agreement, 'BioBud is the
first international distributor for Curiox. The distribution partnership
represents an excellent opportunity for both companies, Curiox and BioBud.
The distribution contract with a leading Korean biotech company, BioBud,
shows the level of trust in, and superiority of, DropArray products in
spite of our company’s short history. BioBud’s extensive network and
understanding of the Korean biotech market is expected to provide the ideal
partnership for Curiox to enter and capture this market.'

Jae Hoon Hwang, CEO of BioBud, added, 'I am extremely pleased about the
partnership with Curiox. Its DropArray products will upgrade BioBud’s
status in the Korean biotech market while increasing its revenue from
distribution. On the technical level, it is my pleasure to introduce such
innovative products to the Korean market earlier than any other major
countries and to offer this great opportunity to Korean researchers. I am
confident that BioBud’s significant customer database and experience in
research will speed up market acceptance of DropArray products.'

Singapore and Korea are the first markets in which Curiox’s DropArray
product line is being launched. These markets provide a sufficient base of
potential customers to provide reasonable revenues along with valuable
feedback on the products. As a next step, Curiox intends to expand the
distribution of its products to other countries in the Asia Pacific region
such as Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia. This will be followed by
Germany, the remainder of the European Union, and the USA.

'The aggressiveness with which Curiox is pushing forward with the
commercialization of its products is amazing and illustrates the tremendous
energy within this company. On the basis of this unique technology
platform, we hope to be part of an exciting Asian success story,' said
Marco Beckmann, CEO of Nanostart AG.

BioBud, founded in 2000 by renowned professors from top Korean medical
schools, is one of the leading private biotech companies in Korea. It has
successfully raised a significant amount of investment and received a
number of top government research grants which have enabled proprietary
technical innovations. Most notably, the company has recently obtained CE
approval for its diagnostics kit in partnership with a company in the USA.
Along with its diagnostics business, the company has a distribution
business focusing on biological reagents and instruments.

About Curiox:

Curiox Biosystems has a vision to accelerate the progress of life sciences
and drug discovery through better miniaturization. Curiox is a
bioinstrumentation company enabling the miniaturization of heterogeneous
bioassay for researchers working in life sciences, drug discovery, and
diagnostics. Curiox’s patented miniaturization platform, DropArray™,
provides up to 1,000 times savings in sample and reagent consumption, and
up to 10 times reduction in assay time. The company is located at Biopolis
in Singapore, the biomedical hub of Singapore and Southeast Asia. The
company is a spin-off from Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology
(IBN) backed primarily by Nanostart and Exploit Technologies, the
commercializing arm of Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and
Research (A*STAR). For further information, please visit www.curiox.com.

About Nanostart:

Nanostart AG is the world’s leading nanotechnology investment company. The
Frankfurt-based company provides venture capital financing for
nanotechnology companies in various growth phases. It also provides the
benefits of its experience and expertise to developers of financial
instruments and to investors in the nanotechnology sector. For further
information about the company, please visit www.nanostart.de.

Disclaimer:

This notice constitutes neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation of
offers to purchase or subscribe to securities. There will be no public
offering of securities of Nanostart AG in conjunction with the existing
listing of its shares in the 'Entry Standard' segment of the regulated
unofficial market (Freiverkehr) on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. This
notice does not constitute a securities prospectus. Neither this notice nor
the information contained within is intended for direct or indirect
distribution within the United States of America, Canada, Australia or
Japan.

Media contact:
Nanostart AG
Public Relations
Dr. Hans Joachim Dürr
Goethestrasse 26-28
D-60313 Frankfurt
Germany
phone: +49 (0)69-21 93 96 111
fax: +49 (0)69-21 93 96 122
e-mail: presse@nanostart.de
26.05.2008 Financial News transmitted by DGAP

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