Merck Millipore Announces Exclusive Supply and Marketing Agreement With Ventria Bioscience to Expand its CellPrime™ Line of Non-animal Origin Products

March 21, 2012, Darmstadt, Germany — Merck Millipore, the Life Science division of Merck KGaA* of Germany, today announced an exclusive collaboration with Ventria Bioscience through which Ventria will manufacture and supply a recombinant product that meets the requirements for use as a raw material in cGMP biopharmaceutical production. This product, which utilizes Ventria’s ExpressTec biomanufacturing technology, will be exclusively marketed and distributed by Merck Millipore to its customers on a global basis. The product and terms of the transaction were not disclosed by the parties.

“Ventria’s ExpressTec biomanufacturing system provides the leading non-animal origin and highly efficient source of recombinant products derived from plants,” said Morgan Norris, Head of Biopharm Materials and Technologies. “These products offer Merck Millipore the opportunity to expand its CellPrime™ line of non-animal origin products and provide customers with a wide range of solutions for biomanufacturing.”

“This collaboration with Merck Millipore, an industry leader in biomanufacturing, aligns Ventria’s recombinant protein manufacturing technology with Merck Millipore’s technical applications expertise and customer relationships in research, development and bioproduction,” said Randy Semadeni, Vice President Business Development for Ventria Bioscience. “We look forward to working with Merck Millipore on this and future endeavors to expand our offering of high quality non-animal origin reagents for biopharmaceutical manufacturing.”

For more information on Merck Millipore’s upstream cell culture media and supplements, please visit www.merckmillipore.com/upstream.

About Merck Millipore
Merck Millipore is the Life Science division of Merck KGaA of Germany and offers a broad range of innovative, performance products, services and business relationships that enable our customers’ success in research, development and production of biotech and pharmaceutical drug therapies. Through dedicated collaboration on new scientific and engineering insights, and as one of the top three R&D investors in the Life Science Tools industry, Merck Millipore serves as a strategic partner to customers and helps advance the promise of life science.

Headquartered in Billerica, Massachusetts, the division has around 10,000 employees, operations in 67 countries and 2010 revenues of EUR 1.7 million. Merck Millipore operates as EMD Millipore in the U.S. and Canada.

Note: Merck KGaA or Merck shall mean Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

About Ventria Bioscience
Ventria Bioscience develops, manufactures and markets biotherapeutics and products used in bioprocessing, regenerative medicine, cell culture media, and research and development. Ventria’s patented ExpressTec biomanufacturing technology enables the development of new and cost-effective biologic products. For more information visit www.Ventria.com.