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Pharming Group N.V. (PINKSHEETS: PHGUF) Leiden, The Netherlands, July 14, 2008. Biotech company Pharming Group NV ("Pharming") (NYSE Euronext: PHARM) announced today that its wholly owned subsidiary DNage is participating in a large European study, called MARK-AGE, to identify and establish biomarkers of human ageing. Under the Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7), the European Union has allocated a total budget of almost € 12 million for this study for a period of five years.
The consortium is headed by the University of Konstanz (Germany) and brings together 26 research groups from 14 European countries including universities, research centres and companies such as Nestlé Research Center and Unilever. The study includes about 4000 volunteers from different European regions, both men and women between 35 and 74 years old, making it one of the largest studies on biomarkers of ageing of its kind. This large-scale integrating project aims at identifying biomarkers of ageing, i.e. changes in body function or composition which are related to ageing. The resulting biomarkers could predict the onset of age-related diseases and may be used as diagnostic markers or as therapeutic targets. Additional information is available on www.mark-age.eu.
DNage will use its proprietary, accelerated ageing animal models to discover novel biomarkers of ageing, and will recruit patients that suffer from premature ageing (in particular Cockayne Syndrome) to validate the identified biomarkers. The company has programs in the field of premature ageing syndromes, osteoporosis, neurodegeneration and metabolic diseases.
Last May, DNage started a Phase I trial with Prodarsan® to evaluate the pharmacokinetics and tolerability of this product in healthy volunteers. Prodarsan® is a defined combination of small molecules which is being developed to delay premature ageing.
About Pharming Group NV Pharming Group NV is developing innovative products for the treatment of genetic disorders, aging diseases, specialty products for surgical indications, intermediates for various applications and nutritional products. Pharming has two products in late stage development - Rhucin® (recombinant human C1 inhibitor) for Hereditary Angioedema and human lactoferrin for use in food products. The advanced technologies of the Company include innovative platforms for the production of protein therapeutics, technology and processes for the purification and formulation of these products, as well as technologies in the field of tissue repair (via its collaboration with NovaThera) and DNA repair (via DNage BV). Additional information is available on the Pharming website, http://www.pharming.com and on http://www.dnage.nl.
This press release contains forward looking statements that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward looking statements. The press release also appears in Dutch. In the event of any inconsistency, the English version will prevail over the Dutch version.
Contact: Carina Hamaker (NL), Investor Voice, T: +31 (0)6 537 499 59 or T: +31 (0)71 52 47 400 Rein Strijker, Pharming Group NV, T: +31 (0)71 52 47 400
