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TWST: Can we begin with a brief introduction to Perbio Science (Frankfurt:928614.F)?

Mr. Fischier: Until the October 19, 1999, Perbio Science was a division within the Swedish chemical conglomerate, Perstorp AB. We were spun off from Perstorp in October 1999 as a stand alone, listed on the Swedish Stock Market entity via tax-free dividend to the shareholders. We are probably the only biotech company, in this space at least, that hasn’t done an IPO. We are not therefore financed over the stock market. We are financed by bank loans. The two main activities in the group are both related to protein. In the Bioresearch Division, headquartered in Rockford Illinois, we are developing , producing and marketing tools that the protein researcher uses when studying proteins, mainly in life science research or in drug discovery. When a researcher, for example, needs to see how the proteins work in the cell and how they interact with each other, they use our toolbox of about 3000 different products. And this, in short, allows them to conduct detailed studies on the protein and protein-protein interactions. Many of the new drugs that you get from the new molecular biology, proteomic type of drug discovery will be proteins, whether they be vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, etc. Those proteins need to be produced in mammalian cell culture. They are not produced with chemical synthesis. That is the market for the Cell Culture division in Logan, Utah, which supplies to the manufacturers of proteins. The main products are media, (nourishment and growth factors), sterile liquids and bioprocess containers, which is a technology to ship and store sterile liquids or to produce sterile liquids.

TWST: Which division stands out as the most significant growth opportunity?

Mr. Fischier: If you take last year the Cell Culture Division grew something like 50%. And from 1996 the two divisions have grown organically at around 25%.

TWST: Do you expect that to continue?

Mr. Fischier: I don’t expect anything to grow 50% for an extended period of time. But I still think that the two divisions could do something like 20+% organic growth for an extended period of time. That’s the guidance I am giving to the market.

TWST: What’s on your agenda then when you look to the next two or three years? Have you laid out a specific set of milestones that you will be aiming for?

Mr. Fischier: I would say protein technologies and the manufacturing procedures in disposables would be two major targets. The specific goals are always to acquire or develop new protein technologies. That’s key for us. It is also important we develop our disposable manufacturing system. The disposable production system uses plastics instead of stainless steel and glassware that has to be cleaned because sterility is essential. We have a marketing joint venture, HyNetics, with Kinetics. Kinetics is a world leader in engineering and designing of biopharmaceutical plants and manufacturing units. We need a stronger presence outside US in sales and manufacturing. Another important goal is to be really strong in what we call serum free, protein free media in the Cell Culture division.

TWST: Can you tell us about that?

Mr. Fischier: Serum is a very important growth factor and the most attractive serum with the highest potency is fetal bovine serum. The availability of this serum is basically fixed, but the demand is not. We and others do not have serum available for the new drugs that will hit the market in the next 5-6 years. So, we need to switch over to serum free and when we do that we also want to do it protein free because then you take away the risk for infections