GENEART AG: Second Quarter / First Half -Year 2010

REGENSBURG, GERMANY--(Marketwire - August 17, 2010) -

Geneart AG / GENEART AG: Second Quarter / First Half -Year 2010 processed and transmitted by Hugin AS. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

· Net sales increase during first half-year and second quarter 2010
· EBIT increased to EUR 92 thousand during the first half (first half 2009: EUR 26 thousand)
· Net sales and earnings developments within the expectations for the financial year 2010

GENEART AG, global leader in gene synthesis and specialist in the field of Synthetic Biology moderately increased net sales by 9.9% to EUR 4.5M during the second quarter 2010 (second quarter 2009: EUR 4.1M). During the overall period of the first six months net sales increased from EUR 8.1M during the first half of 2009 by about 12% to EUR 9.1M during the first half of 2010.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased to EUR 1.0M, thus exceeding the result of the first half-year 2009 by EUR 0.2M. As to net sales the EBITDA margin rose from 10.1% to 11.2% during the first six months. The EBIT grew from EUR 26 thousand during the first half of 2009 to EUR 92 thousand in the first half of 2010. These developments of net sales and earnings are within the scope of the expectations for the fiscal year 2010. The results of the first half-year were influenced by a one-off special effect, resulting from the acquisition of the majority shares by the US-based Life Technologies Corporation which caused employee options to be exercised. This special effect has no impact on liquidity, however, it increases personnel expenses pursuant to IFRS and has an impact of EUR 0.4M on earnings.

The cash flow from operating activities improved during the first half by EUR 0.6M from EUR -0.3M (first half 2009) to EUR 0.3M (first half 2010). The cash flow from investing activities at EUR -0.8M was almost unaltered. The cash, cash equivalents and securities, specified as liquidity and financial securities, increased from EUR 5.6M as of June 30, 2009 to EUR 7.4M as of June 30, 2010.

The operational development of GENEART AG in the second quarter still remained unaffected by the takeover by Life Technologies Corporation. The GENEART AG team was able to sustain the growth of the company in what remains a challenging environment. For the future GENEART assumes that in the new strong partnership with Life Technologies the strengths of GENEART can be optimally utilized for the joint development of the new future market of Synthetic Biology.

According to information supplied by Applied Biosystems Deutschland GmbH, Darmstadt ("ABD"), Applied Biosystems directly holds more than 95% of the shares in GENEART AG. ABD notified the Board of Directors of GENEART AG accordingly in a letter dated August 3, 2010. In this letter ABD also notified GENEART AG of its request that an extraordinary shareholders' meeting of GENEART AG may resolve upon the transfer of shares of the minority shareholders to ABD against payment of an adequate cash consideration.

The Board of Directors of GENEART AG intends to comply with this request and to convene an extraordinary shareholders' meeting. This meeting will presumably take place at a time in the last quarter of 2010. GENEART AG and ABD also still intend to conclude a domination agreement with GENEART AG as dominated and ABD as dominating entity. This domination agreement shall be submitted for approval to this extraordinary shareholders' meeting.

As to the overall fiscal year 2010 GENEART AG stand by its forecast as a whole. Within a normalized economical situation in the second half of 2010 we intend to achieve sales of EUR 18.5 to 19.5M and an EBIT of EUR 0.5 to 0.6M.

For further inquiries, please contact:

Dr. Karoline Stürmer
GENEART AG
Josef-Engert-Str. 11
93053 Regensburg
Germany
Phone: (0)941-942 76-417
Fax: (0)941-942 76-711
ir@geneart.com
www.geneart.com


Frank Ostermair
Better Orange IR & HV AG
Haidelweg 48
81241 Munich
Germany
Phone: (0)89-8896906-10
Fax: (0)89-8896906-66
info@better-orange.de
www.better-orange.de

Legal Information:

This document may contain estimates, prognoses and opinions about company plans and objectives, products or services, future results, opinions about these results or opinions leading up to these results. All these projections into the future are subject to risk, uncertainty and unforeseeable change outside the control of the GENEART Group. Many factors may lead to actual results, which considerably deviate from the given projections for these results.

About GENEART AG:

In 2000 GENEART entered the Gene Synthesis market and has since become the global market leader. Today, the company is one of the leading specialists in the Synthetic Biology field. Experts at GENEART provide key technologies for the development and production of new therapeutics and vaccines. Customers also take advantage of GENEART services to customize enzyme attributes, such as the attributes of enzymes used as detergent additives, and to construct bacteria, which produce complex biopolymers or break down polymers, such as synthetics, petroleum components, etc. GENEART's service portfolio ranges from the optimization and production of synthetic genes according to DIN EN ISO 9001:2008, to the generation of gene variants or complex gene libraries and the production of cell lines, to the development and production of DNA and protein based drug candidates. GENEART AG in Regensburg and its subsidiaries GENEART Inc. in Toronto (Canada) and GENEART Inc. in San Francisco (USA) employ about 180 people. The company is listed on the German Stock Exchange since May 2006. Since April 2010, U.S.-based Life Technologies Corporation, one of the leading biotechnology companies worldwide with 2009 revenues of USD 3.3B and about 9,000 employees, is the majority shareholder of GENEART AG.

[HUG#1438230]

Geneart AG
Josef-Engert-Str.11 Regensburg Germany

Listed: Freiverkehr in Börse Stuttgart,
Freiverkehr in Börse Berlin,
Freiverkehr in Börse Düsseldorf,
Open Market (Freiverkehr) in Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse;

GENEART AG: Second Quarter / First Half -Year 2010: http://hugin.info/136633/R/1438230/382831.pdf

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