We hereby announce that TRANS GENIC INC. (hereinafter referred to as q‡weqˆ) concluded a license agreement with Hiroshima Technology Licensing Office (hereinafter referred to as q‡Hiroshima TLOqˆ) on April 24, 2007 for a basic technology to produce a large quantity of protein in mammalian cells (hereinafter referred to as q‡the technologyqˆ), in order to launch a business using the technology.

We have conducted a feasibility study to start up a business using the technology, with Hiroshima University and Hiroshima TLO based on a business tie-up with them for technology transfer concluded on May 24, 2005 and recently completed examining it. Accordingly we have obtained a license, with right to sublicense, for the following three business operations developed by inventions owned by Hiroshima University (patent numbers are JP3755028 and JP3882042).

This revolutionary technology, invented by Noriaki Shimizu, associate professor of Graduate School of Biosphere Science, Hiroshima University, can amplify genes exponentially and express proteins in immense quantities by transfecting IR/MAR vectors(*1) and target genes in mammalian cells. q_It is a fundamental technology widely applicable to protein production and has the following advantages.

qdApplicable to a wide variety of mammalian cells.

qdAble to produce a large quantity of human and animal proteins under the same physiological conditions as in vivo.

qdAble to produce cells expressing a large amount of protein in a simple method.

qdAble to produce safer protein products since no virus or microorganism are used.

Thanks to these advantages, the technology can be widely applicable to production of biotechnology-based drugs, enzymes for food processing, cosmetic ingredients, and protein products including research reagents as well as various researches on structures and physiological functions of proteins. We will start up a business of custom production service and distribution of cells expressing a large amount of proteins and a sublicense business of the technology.

We are now establishing a series of technological platforms related to protein, centering on antibody production technologies. The introduction of the technology is a part of these mid- and long-term efforts and we believe it will substantially contribute to our R&D activities.

The effects of this announcement on our business performance are as yet unknown, but we will make an announcement as soon as it is revealed to have a significant impact on our future performance.

*1

IR/MAR Vector

It is a plasmid vector, bearing a mammalian replication initiation region (IR) and a matrix attachment region (MAR), which is shown to be efficiently amplified to high copy number in mammalian cells and to generate chromosomal homogeneously staining regions (HSRs). The amplification mechanism, a characteristic of cancer cells, is suggested to entail a head-on collision at the MAR between the transcription machinery and the hypothetical replication fork arriving from the IR, leading to double strand breakage (DSB) that triggered HSR formation.

Hiroshima TLO
http://www.hiwave.or.jp/tlo/