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Zymenex hosts European Alpha-mannosidosis Disease Group meeting

Zymenex hosts the EU sponsored Alpha-mannosidosis Hue-Man consortium meeting, which takes place in Denmark during the days of May 9 - 10, 2008. The Hue-Man project group consists of leading scientists and clinicians from prominent universities and hospitals from around Europe, who together with Zymenex, have in 2006, received a 3-year 6th framework EU grant of € 3.2 million. The group is devoting their efforts to investigate and establish clinical parameters in the Alpha-mannosidosis mouse model and to perform a natural history study of the human disease in patients, in order to define clinical endpoints for the upcoming first clinical trials in man.

The Hue-Man project takes and expands the knowledge obtained by the joint research group from the three year 5th framework EU grant supported EURAMAN project, which successfully established an enzyme replacement therapy for a mouse model of Alpha-mannosidosis and demonstrated correction of storage in many tissues including brain, after administration of the lysosomal acid a-mannosidase enzyme (rhLAMAN) Lamazym, developed by Zymenex.

About the disease

The disease is due to a deficiency of the a-mannosidase enzyme and affects approximately 500 patients worldwide. Alpha-mannosidosis is a rare inborn disorder that results in mental retardation, skeletal changes, hearing loss, recurrent infections and progression to early death. The children are often born apparently normal and their conditions worsen progressively, without any possibility to prevent this evolution. In the children that are born healthy, a therapy initiated at an early age could contribute to a normal development. Today, the most promising therapy for lysosomal storage diseases is enzyme replacement therapy (ERT), here the enzyme lacking in the patient is introduced into the blood stream, from where it is internalized by the cells and reaches the lysosomes, acting as the original missing enzyme.

About Zymenex

Zymenex A/S is a Scandinavian biopharmaceutical company, founded in 1998, with headquarters in Hillerød north of Copenhagen, Denmark and research laboratories in Stockholm, Sweden. The company is focused on research and development of pharmaceutical products for the treatment of rare, genetic diseases, for which there is no treatment today and which, due to the small patient populations, fall within "Orphan Diseases" and the Orphan Drug Acts.

The Zymenex pipeline includes the recombinant enzyme, Lamazym, for the treatment of the lysosomal disease Alpha-mannosidosis as well as Galaczym for Globoid Cell Leukodystrophy (Krabbe Disease). Lamazym has received Orphan Drug Designation in both Europe and the US.

Zymenex has recently sold their lead project Metazym, for the treatment of Metachromatic Leukodystrophy to Shire for 135 MUSD.

The Danish venture capital investors BankInvest and Sunstone Capital support Zymenex financially.

For further information on Zymenex, please visit the Company's website: www.zymenex.com

About the Hue-Man consortium

The HUE-MAN partnership www.uni-kiel.de/Biochemie/hue-man consists of scientists and clinicians from: the Christian Albrechts University, Kiel, Germany; the Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium; the Georg August University, Göttingen, Germany; the Central Manchester & Manchester Children's Hospitals NHS Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom; the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany; the Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; the University of Tromsoe, Tromsoe, Norway; the Centre National de la Researche Scientific (CNRS), Lille, France and Zymenex.

Further information

CEO Jens Fogh, Zymenex A/S, Roskildevej 12 C, Hillerød, Denmark, telephone +45 48 25 00 54