BASEL, Switzerland & COLOGNE, Germany–Axiogenesis AG has entered into a worldwide, exclusive distribution agreement with Lonza Cologne AG effective 01 January 2010. The agreement includes Axiogenesis’s current product and service portfolio, including the industry standard Cor.At® mouse embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. These highly pure and well characterized cells have demonstrated utility in drug discovery, safety pharmacology, and cardiac research programs in both industry and academia.

“The Axiogenesis portfolio is an ideal fit with Lonza’s activities and strengthens the Research Solutions’ product and service offering, especially in the field of drug discovery. We are excited to further develop this collaboration as we implement our business strategy”

“We are delighted to have reached a distribution agreement with Lonza.“ says Axiogenesis CFO Bernd Fronhoff. “It allows Axiogenesis to continue to expand its market presence and further concentrate on its core competence, the development of in vitro differentiated pure tissue specific cells and assay systems for drug development.“

Using the Cor.At® cardiomyocytes as a predictive cell model, Axiogenesis has developed an assay to predict cardiac specific cytotoxicity. It is ideal for high throughput screening (HTS) and to identify drug candidates with cardiotoxic effects early in drug development. In addition, Cor.At® cells form the basis of the first physiologically relevant disease model of cardiomyopathy by inducing a state of hypertrophy. Both of these in vitro assays are now offered both as a kit and as a service.

“The Axiogenesis portfolio is an ideal fit with Lonza’s activities and strengthens the Research Solutions’ product and service offering, especially in the field of drug discovery. We are excited to further develop this collaboration as we implement our business strategy,” reflects Dr. Teun van der Heide, Head of Research Solutions in Lonza’s Bioscience business.

These products and services complement Lonza’s market leading Clonetics® and Poietics® brands of primary cells and optimized media. The Cor.At® cardiomyocytes represent Lonza’s first entry into the pluripotent stem cell market with more differentiated cell types planned for launch in 2010.

For more details and to order Cor.At® Products, please visit www.lonza.com/corat.

About Axiogenesis

Axiogenesis was founded in 2000 and is a located in Cologne, Germany. Its primary focus is the development of novel assays based on cells derived from in vitro differentiated murine embryonic stem cells (ESC) or human and murine induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). These primary-like cells display normal physiological behavior and are used in pharmacology and safety screening by the pharmaceutical, chemical, and cosmetics industries.

Axiogenesis technology reduces time and cost of drug development by weeding out the toxic or ineffective candidates early on in the drug development process and focusing the clinical trials, especially stage II and III, to better define the target group lowering costs and increasing the success rate of clinical trials.

Further information can be found at www.axiogenesis.com.

About Lonza

Lonza is one of the world’s leading suppliers to the pharmaceutical, healthcare and life science industries. Its products and services span its customers’ needs from research to final product manufacture. Lonza is the global leader in the production and support of active pharmaceutical ingredients both chemically as well as biotechnologically. At the site in Cologne, Lonza develops and commercializes non-viral gene transfer products for primary cells and difficult-to-transfect cell lines. These cells are important model systems for both basic and clinical research as they more accurately reflect the condition and behavior of cells within an organism when compared to commonly used laboratory cell lines. With the specially developed Amaxa® Nucleofector® Technology, the functionality of different genes can now be analyzed in biologically relevant cell types. These results are used to more efficiently identify new targets for pharmaceuticals and therapies.

Lonza is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland and is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. In 2008, Lonza had sales of CHF 2.94 billion. Further information can be found at www.lonza.com.