European Company NovaSecta Joins First Chinese CRO Service Alliance for Drug Discovery Solutions

SHANGHAI, China, Feb. 18 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Today, NovaSecta, Sundia Meditech and HD BioSciences announced their strategic alliance to provide drug discovery solutions for European pharmaceutical and biotech companies. This alliance brings together the high quality scientific capabilities of Sundia and HD BioSciences with NovaSecta's extensive client base and unique understanding of European mid-sized pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

To date, the rapidly-growing Chinese Discovery CRO phenomenon has been largely driven by global and US "Big Pharma" and "Big Biotech" companies -- both as consumers of CRO services and as sources of highly-experienced returnee scientists to China. European pharmaceutical and biotech companies now need to make use of the scientific skills, creative talent pool, flexible resourcing and cost-effectiveness that many global Big Pharmas already take for granted in China.

NovaSecta's business is centered on providing smaller to mid-sized pharmaceutical and biotech companies the scale advantages that Big Pharmas enjoy while allowing them to remain independent, fast and flexible. This alliance is therefore a natural step in NovaSecta's evolution as an R&D services company. "We selected Sundia Meditech and HD BioSciences as our alliance partners based on their professionalism and track record in repeatedly delivering drug discovery solutions to their US and multi-national clients. Combining the skills and demonstrated drug discovery track record of their scientific teams with the expertise of European drug discovery scientists will surely lead to faster and more efficient generation of high quality drug candidates" said Robert Thong and John Rountree, NovaSecta's co- founders and Managing Directors.

Sundia Meditech, United PharmaTech, and HD BioSciences entered into a CRO Service Alliance in May 2007. In the following months, Sundia and United merged into one company, a first successful merger of China's CRO industry. The initial alliance was formed to quickly and successfully expand into the complete range of CRO services to fit the increased demands from clients worldwide while maintaining high quality and efficiency and minimizing cost. "We believe that by extending our alliance to include NovaSecta, we will bring significant benefits to European customers, so we look forward to working with NovaSecta and more European clients," said Dr. Xiaochuan Wang, Sundia Meditech's founder and CEO and Dr. Xuehai Tan, HD BioSciences' founder and CEO.

About NovaSecta (http://www.novasecta.com )

NovaSecta is a specialist R&D service provider for smaller to mid-sized pharmaceutical and biotech companies ('MidPharmas'). Since its founding in early 2003, NovaSecta has built a unique network of relationships with MidPharmas in Europe and a deep understanding of how these companies manage and develop their R&D capabilities. NovaSecta's current business is originating and managing collaborations for MidPharmas; to date these have included a multi-company R&D program, product/project licensing and acquisitions, and scientific R&D collaborations.

About Sundia Meditech (http://www.sundia.com )

Sundia MediTech was founded in Shanghai in 2004 by veterans of the US biopharmaceutical industry, and is now a leading CRO company in China. The founding team has talent and track record in organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry, drug design and discovery, process chemistry, cGMP API production, in vitro/vivo PK research, and business and IP management. Sundia has successfully worked with over 50 companies world-wide, and provides services in custom synthesis, library production, lead optimization (PD and PK), scale up, pre-clinical studies, cGMP API production and pharmaceutical development.

About HD BioSciences (http://www.hdbiosciences.com )

HD BioSciences, based in Shanghai, is one of the leading biology CRO companies in China. The company is known for its expertise in assay development, high-throughput screening (HTS), hit-to-lead solutions, high- throughput compound profiling, and natural compound-based lead identification. The company's proprietary assays and screening platforms give it a competitive edge in drug lead discovery services and in providing value to its partners and clients from pharmaceutical and biotech companies world-wide.

CONTACT: Ming Tang, COO of Sundia Meditech, +86-21-51098642x104 or +86-
159-21008291, or mtang@sundia.com

Web site: http://www.novasecta.com/
http://www.sundia.com/
http://www.hdbiosciences.com/

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