DIREVO Industrial Biotechnology GmbH Appoints Dr. Joerg Riesmeier as COO

Cologne, January 18, 2009 - DIREVO Industrial Biotechnology GmbH (DIREVO) announced today the appointment of Dr. Joerg Riesmeier as Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer with immediate effect. Dr. Riesmeier is an executive with a proven track record in industrial biotechnology, both in long-range industry investment and in product development. He will be leading the company together with the company’s CEO, Dr. Thomas von Rüden.

“We are delighted to welcome Dr. Riesmeier on board,” said Prof. Heinrich Schulte, Chairman of the advisory board. “Joerg brings the company substantial additional expertise in industrial biotechnology, and this will support the future development of DIREVO as a more product-orientated company,” he added.

"DIREVO had been on my watchlist for several years, and I was always impressed by the company’s rapid technical progress, its strong leadership, and its commercial targets," said Dr. Joerg Riesmeier. "Now I am very enthusiastic to join the team. Over the past 18 months, DIREVO has made enormous strides, and we have aligned all the key ingredients to build a very successful business and become a powerhouse for world-class catalytic development.”

About Dr. Joerg Riesmeier

Dr. Riesmeier joins DIREVO from LSP, Inc. (Boston), where he had been General Partner since 2006. He launched and directed the US office of this $1 b global venture-capital firm, holding responsibility for $100 m investment portfolio development and management, with a focus on clean technologies, agriculture, platform technologies, food and nutrition, and health.

Prior to his position at LSP, Dr. Riesmeier was Head of Business Development at BURRILL & CO. (San Francisco), where he held responsibility for AgBio and Nutraceutical funds, managing the Bayer account at Burrill and $100 m in venture capital.

Previously, Dr. Riesmeier was President & CEO at PLANTTEC BIOTECHNOLOGY– Potsdam, Germany (acquired by Bayer CropScience), an €8 m biotech startup that he created and supervised, maintaining leadership through acquisition by Bayer CropScience in 2000 and assuming strategic business development and R&D roles within Bayer.

About DIREVO Industrial Biotechnology GmbH

DIREVO Industrial Biotechnology GmbH was founded in 2008 as a spin-out of former DIREVO AG´s Industrial Biotechnology business unit and AC Biotec GmbH. It provides customized solutions via the development and optimization of biocatalysts using its proprietary ultra-high-throughput screening platform.

Serving the Feed&Food industries and chemical/biorefinery businesses, DIREVO products are developed either independently or in conjunction with global leaders such as Danisco/Genencor and Nestlé. Initial products from DIREVO´s enzyme optimization facility have already gone on the market. DIREVO’s multi-parameter optimized Phytase (in collaboration with Genencor) and Mannanase (proprietary) are best-in-class products.

DIREVO Industrial Biotechnology GmbH is privately owned and located in Cologne, Germany. The shareholders include Wölbern Private Equity Partner GmbH (Hamburg), NRW Bank (Düsseldorf), TVM-Capital (Munich), Danisco A/S (Copenhagen), a private equity firm affiliated with Sparkasse KölnBonn (Cologne), SandersMorrisHarris EnzymesLLC (New York), Mulligan BioCapital (Hamburg), and several private investors.

More information is available at: www.direvo.com.

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