Octapharma News May 8th, 2008

Octapharma acquisition of a plasma fractionation plant in Springe, Germany from German Red Cross organizations

On April 30, 2008, Octapharma acquired PVG (Plasmaverarbeitungsgesellschaft in Springe, Germany), a company owned and founded by blood transfusion services of the German Red Cross in Niedersachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Thüringen, Bremen, Baden-Württemberg and Hessen.

PVG has fractionated mainly into product intermediates, PPSB and Albumin, all plasma coming from these non-profit-organisations.

Since 2001, Octapharma has established a successful collaboration with PVG concerning the supply of these fractions into its own plants throughout Europe. The successful acquisition of the Springe plant is the logical conclusion of this very successful collaboration.

Octapharma plans to increase the present capacity both for intermediates and pharmaceutical products substantially over the next few years. Concrete investment plans will start to be executed this summer.

These plans will also lead to a substantial increase of employment opportunities in this region from originally approximately 60 employees to an expected number of 400 positions in 2011.

Octapharma is one of the largest fractionators of human plasma with activities worldwide for sales and marketing as well as with modern state-of-the-art manufacturing sites throughout the EU. The company is privately held and had sales of Euro 760 million in 2007 and in excess of 2,000 employees.

Wolfgang Marguerre