Solvay Pharmaceuticals and Novasep Have Signed a Strategic Manufacturing Alliance

Solvay Pharmaceuticals and Novasep have signed a five-year strategic manufacturing alliancewhich includes the exclusive synthesis of two active pharmaceuticalingredients for Solvay Pharmaceuticals.

Solvay and Novasep have recently set a strategic manufacturingalliance defining Novasep as a preferred partner for the development,the scale-up and the industrial supply of existing or new chemicalentities and/or active pharmaceutical ingredients. Under the terms ofthis 5-years agreement, Novasep currently implement the large scaleproduction of Pinaverium bromide and Betahistine in its Mourenxfacility.

As part of this alliance in the short and mid-term, Novasep andSolvay Pharmaceuticals will start discussion on the possibility toextend this agreement. This outsourcing is in line with SolvayPharmaceuticals strategy of shifting selected manufacturingactivities to high quality, competitively-priced alternatives.

Novasep Synthesis offers exclusive synthesis services utilizingspecialised technologies such as, for instance, chiral technologies,hazardous chemistry, highly potent API to produce elaborate moleculesfor the pharmaceutical industry and combines its exclusive synthesisknow-how and capabilities with its purification technology usingpreparative chromatography to offer a pure and cost-effective API toits customers.

Solvay is an international chemical and pharmaceutical Group withheadquarters in Brussels. It employs some 30,000 people in 50countries. In 2005 its consolidated sales amounted to EUR 8.6 billiongenerated by its three activity sectors: Chemicals, Plastics andPharmaceuticals. SOLVAY (Euronext : SOLB.BE - Bloomberg: SOLB.BB -Reuters: SOLBt.BR) is listed on the Euronext stock exchange inBrussels. Details are available at www.solvay.com

Novasep Synthesis provides R&D and exclusive synthesis, from labto industrial scale, with special expertise in hazardous chemistry,chiral technologies, Highly Potent APIs and Early Stage Services.Novasep Synthesis includes two business units: exclusive synthesisandproprietary products.

Groupe Novasep covers the special needs of the pharmaceutical,food, cosmetics, agrochemicals, and speciality chemicals industries.It binds chemical synthesis and chemical engineering expertise inorder to develop new technologies. The group operates through twodivisions: Novasep Synthesis and Novasep Process focusing on thesynthesis and process of intermediates, advanced intermediates andAPIs.