Zealand Pharma

Director's Dealing • May 9, 2012

Copenhagen, 2012-05-09 11:24 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pursuant to the Danish
Securities Trading Act, section 28a, Zealand Pharma A/S shall announce
transactions in the company’s shares and related securities by executives and
persons/companies closely related to them.

In this regard, Zealand Pharma announces the following transactions:

Name: Mats Blom

Reason: Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Issuer: Zealand Pharma A/S

Type Shares

ISIN code: DK0060257814

Transaction: Sale

Trading date: 7 and 8 May 2012

Market: NASDAQ OMX København A/S

Amount (number of shares): 22,959

Price: DKK 106.20

Market value: DKK 2,438,316

Name: John Hyttel

Reason: Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Issuer: Zealand Pharma A/S

Type Shares

ISIN code: DK0060257814

Transaction: Sale

Trading date: 8 May 2012

Market: NASDAQ OMX København A/S

Amount (number of shares): 24,000

Price: DKK 101.80

Market value: DKK 2,443,200

Hereafter, Mats Blom owns 90,246 shares and 98,031 warrants and John Hyttel
owns 122,454 shares and 98,031 warrants in Zealand Pharma A/S.

                                  ###

For further information, please contact:

David Horn Solomon, President and Chief Executive Officer

Tel: +45 2220 6300

Hanne Leth Hillman, Vice President for IR & Corporate Communication

Tel: +45 5060 3689, email: hlh@zealandpharma.com

About Zealand Pharma

Zealand Pharma A/S (NASDAQ OMX: ZEAL) is a biotechnology company based in
Copenhagen, Denmark with a mature clinical pipeline of innovative peptide
drugs. The company's lead invention is lixisenatide (Lyxumia® 1)), a
once-daily GLP-1 agonist, licensed to Sanofi for the treatment of Type 2
diabetes. In November 2011, Sanofi filed for registration of lixisenatide in
Europe and regulatory filing in the United States is expected in Q4 2012.
Zealand Pharma also has a collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim covering dual
acting glucagon/GLP-1 agonists, including ZP2929, for the treatment of diabetes
and obesity, and a license agreement with Helsinn Healthcare on elsiglutide, a
clinical stage GLP-2 drug for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced diarrhea.

Zealand Pharma specializes in the discovery, optimization and development of
novel peptide drugs, and all drug candidates in its pipeline have been
identified through the company's own drug discovery activities. Zealand
Pharma's products target disease areas where existing treatments fail to
adequately serve patient needs and where the market potential for improved
treatments through the use of peptide drugs is high.

For further information: www.zealandpharma.com.

Note 1) Lyxumia® is the intended trademark for lixisenatide. Lixisenatide is
not currently approved or licensed anywhere in the world.