Atacama Labs Enters Into Partnership With Excella Gmbh, Which is Part of Fareva Holding, a Top 10 Global Contract Manufacturer

HELSINKI, Finland, March 4, 2010 /PRNewswire/ --

- A Finnish Company ATACAMA LABS OY and a German Based EXCELLA GmbH (Fareva Holding SA) Have Signed a Contract Manufacturing Agreement to Jointly Market and Sell PDG Granule and Tablet Manufacturing Services for the Pharmaceutical Industry

- Excella / Atacama Labs Offer for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Atacama Labs Oy has developed an innovative oral drug delivery technology (called 'pneumatic dry granulation' or 'PDG Technology(TM)'). The technology is aimed to replace existing solid dosage form development and manufacturing methods (like wet granulation or standard roller compaction) and will help both NCE galenic developers and life cycle managers to overcome development or differentiation issues.

The Excella / Atacama Labs partnership offers a cGMP compliant and FDA / EMEA / Anvisa certified environment to house Atacama's innovative and fully automated PDG equipment.

"We can develop almost any API (including difficult ones) into higher drug load tablets with good hardness and dissolution profiles and our clients can profit from new tablet characteristics to extend the life cycle of expiring drugs, which can mean several more years of protected sales of a blockbuster drug. In both cases, global economics can be hundreds of millions of additional revenue, naturally subject to magnitude of drug revenue," Mr. Mittwich, CEO of the Atacama Labs Oy concludes.

Fareva Holding SA : Manufacturing excellence

Excella GmbH is part of FAREVA Holding, one of the top 10 contract manufacturing organizations in the world. Fareva today is covering services in four fields - Pharmaceuticals, Cosmetics, Home Care & Industrial and Food.

FAREVA's Pharma Division provides a full service, ranging from pharmaceutical and chemical development, pilot scale manufacturing, supply of clinical studies till industrial-scale production, packaging and quality control. Ten pharmaceutical sites located throughout Europe serve the customer's needs for practically all marketed dosage forms as well as APIs.

Excella GmbH - located in Nuremberg, Germany - provides Contract Manufacturing Services, especially for the development, clinical supply and commercial manufacturing of solid dosage forms specially for cytotoxics, high potent or other critical actives with low occupational exposure levels.

"Atacama Lab's Pneumatic Dry Granulation or PDG Technology(TM) is revolutionary in the sense that it offers significant advantages in terms of API treatability, development speed and costs over today's dry and wet granulation processes " Dr. Michael Tschope , General Manager Pharma, Excella GmbH.

About Atacama Labs Oy

Atacama Labs Oy is a privately owned specialty pharmaceutical company that offers

    - galenic development from test granulations to full galenic development,
      and
    - contract manufacturing services from tablets to fully packaged
      products.


    The Company is located in Helsinki, Finland.
    http://www.atacamalabs.com

SOURCE Atacama Labs Oy