FlexGen Closes New Round of Financing

LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS--(Marketwire - March 02, 2009) - FlexGen, a Dutch Life Sciences company, is active in the genetic research market with a proprietary custom microarray synthesis instrument. The financing will allow FlexGen to speed up the development and global commercialization of its FlexArrayer, an instrument that provides researchers with unprecedented freedom in the production of custom microarrays. FlexGen is collaborating with several leading scientific and industrial customers and partners to develop innovative solutions for next generation sequencing, biomarker validation and other application areas.

Fred Dom, CEO of FlexGen commented: “We are very pleased to have two investors on board that give us the opportunity to bring the company to the next level. The rapidly growing use of next generation sequencing has created exciting opportunities for FlexGen. With the support of our new investors we are able to take a strong position in this growing market; the FlexArrayer provides the customer fast and flexible tools for genomic selection and biomarker validation that can easily be integrated in the high throughput approaches that sequencing facilities require”.

“We are impressed with the capabilities of the company’s custom microarray bench top machines that we believe will have a significant impact on next generation sequencing efforts by providing a unique and fast method for pre-selection” says Wil Hazenberg, partner at BioGeneration Ventures. “The Company has reached several significant milestones. We expect that FlexGen’s technology will be embraced by many of the world’s leading players”. “We are pleased to invest in FlexGen with Biogeneration” says Philippe Guinot, head of Life Sciences Investments Credit Agricole Private Equity. “We are now opening part of our investments to earlier stage promising companies, and are looking forward to a constructive collaboration supporting FlexGen’s development”. The investment was led by BioGeneration Ventures and Wil Hazenberg will join the company’s board of directors and Credit Agricole Private Equity will be represented by Emmanuelle Coutanceau.

About FlexGen

FlexGen has developed proprietary technologies in custom microarray production based on the use of lasers in spot-by-spot photochemical oligonucleotide synthesis and was founded in 2004, by VenGen Participaties bv and TailWind bv. The company’s unique technology was originally developed by Dutch Space NV and Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) with support of BioPartner and the Netherlands Genomics Initiative (NGI). FlexGen’s product, the FlexArrayer, is an instrument for in-house custom microarray synthesis. FlexGen is based in Leiden, the Netherlands. For further information; www.flexgen.nl

About BioGeneration Ventures

BioGeneration Ventures invests in Dutch Life Sciences companies. The team of BioGeneration is specialized in the evaluation of new technologies and in the management of start-up companies. BioGeneration Ventures was co-founded by the Netherlands Genomics Initiative (NGI), NWO, the holding of the University of Leiden, and ABN-AMRO Capital. BioGeneration closely cooperates with Forbion Capital Partners; www.biogenerationventures.com.

About Credit Agricole Private Equity

Credit Agricole Private Equity, an AMF-authorised investment management company and wholly-owned subsidiary of Credit Agricole S.A., specialises in direct private equity investment in unlisted companies. A multi-specialist, Credit Agricole Private Equity has 50 investment teams focusing on different segments of the private equity market (LBO & Expansion, Venture Capital, Mezzanine, Renewable Energy, PPP Infrastructure, Liquidity Solutions, Co-Investment) and manages a total of EUR 2.8 billion in various types of private equity vehicle (FCPR, SICAR, FCPI and SCR). Credit Agricole Private Equity supports entrepreneurs in their expansion plans; www.ca-privateequity.com.