PURE Bioscience Announces Strategic Collaboration With Intercon Chemical Company

SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwired - December 12, 2013) - PURE Bioscience, Inc. (OTCQB: PURE), creator of the patented silver dihydrogen citrate (SDC) antimicrobial, today announced it has entered into a five-year strategic collaboration agreement with St. Louis-based Intercon Chemical Company (ICC). The agreement consists of a multi-pronged approach to accelerate the commercialization of PURE’s unique and proprietary SDC-based products.

The strategic collaboration agreement provides:

• ICC licenses from PURE its patents and technology know-how for the exclusive manufacture for PURE of all SDC-based products.
  • ICC will invest in plant improvements to allow for expanded SDC production.
  • ICC’s R&D team will collaborate on SDC product line development.
• ICC licenses the distribution rights for SDC-based products into its core businesses of institutional cleaning and sanitation products.
  • ICC will develop a new initiative focused on US hospital, healthcare and medical facilities.

  • PURE earns royalty income on SDC-products sold by ICC and its affiliates.

The strategic collaboration agreement is consistent with PURE’s new business strategy:

• Maintain laser focus on its go-to-market strategy in the food industry, as a food safety solution.
• Outsource manufacturing and supply chain management to an established company to lower operating costs and future capital requirements.

• License the distribution rights of its SDC-based products for revenue generation in non-core markets and earn royalty income.

Jim Epstein, President and CEO of ICC, stated, “We believe this collaborative relationship with the new PURE management team provides many benefits to both our Companies. ICC now has a tremendous business opportunity to distribute the breakthrough SDC-based products to our customer base and expand the product line’s reach into the hospital, healthcare and medical facilities markets with its dramatically more effective and safer disinfectant solution. With our established FDA manufacturing capability, we have the operating expertise, quality systems, capacity and flexibility to produce the SDC-based products to better serve and provide support for all of PURE customers. We believe we also have the ability to meet anticipated increasing SDC manufacturing demands.”

Hank Lambert, Chief Executive Officer of PURE Bioscience, added, “We believe this collaborative agreement enables both companies to accelerate the commercialization of our SDC-technology into our respective markets. We have successfully secured for our customers a reliable, quality manufacturer of our unique SDC-based products. This agreement allows us to focus on customer and market adoption of PURE as a powerful and proprietary food safety solution -- while at the same time eliminating significant future financing requirements were we to manufacturer SDC for ourselves.”

About Intercon Chemical Company

Privately owned Intercon Chemical Company in St. Louis, Missouri, employees more than 100 employees at its 250,000 square foot FDA and EPA-registered cGMP compliant manufacturing facility. Intercon has operated for more than 30 years in the cleaning and sanitation chemical manufacturing and service industries with expertise in formulating, manufacturing and marketing liquids, powders and solids as well as packaging, labeling and customer training programs. Intercon provides state-of-the-art chemical products and programs to its network of distributors in multiple markets, including: food service sanitation, healthcare and infection control, facility management companies, janitorial supply companies, commercial floor care, critical process cleaning, food processing facility maintenance, institutional laundry, contract packaging and green products. For more information about Intercon Chemical Company, please visit www.interconchemical.com.

About PURE Bioscience, Inc.

PURE Bioscience, Inc. is focused on developing and commercializing its proprietary antimicrobial products that provide solutions to the health and environmental challenges of pathogen and hygienic control within the food industry. The Company’s technology platform is based on patented stabilized ionic silver, and its initial products contain silver dihydrogen citrate, or SDC. SDC is a broad-spectrum, non-toxic antimicrobial agent, which offers 24-hour residual protection. As a platform technology, SDC is distinguished from existing products in the marketplace by its superior efficacy, reduced toxicity and the inability of bacteria to form a resistance to it. PURE is headquartered in El Cajon, California (San Diego metropolitan area). Additional information on PURE is available at www.purebio.com.

Forward-looking Statements

Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the Company’s cash position and liquidity requirements, the Company’s failure to implement or otherwise achieve the benefits of its proposed business initiatives and plans, acceptance of the Company’s current and future products and services in the marketplace, the ability of the Company to develop effective new products and receive regulatory approvals of such products, competitive factors, dependence upon third-party vendors, including to manufacture its products, and other risks detailed in the Company’s periodic report filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 10-K filed October 24, 2013. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. By making these forward-looking statements, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release.