Millipore and Stem Cell Sciences Announce Agreement To Provide Human Embryonic Stem Cell Media

Millipore Corporation (NYSE: MIL) and Stem Cell Sciences (SCS) today announced an exclusive license for Millipore to develop and market SCS’ serum free media for the growth of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). The defined media will be the first product available in the industry that offers improved methods for growing hESCs without the need for animal serum. By eliminating the need for serum, researchers can generate improved experimental results by avoiding interference from animal products in the media, which will improve the ease of use and reliability in growing hESCs. The lack of animal-free, defined media for growing hESCs has been an important technical hurdle in enabling researchers to advance their understanding of the therapeutic value of stem cells. "Millipore is committed to being the most innovative supplier of products to the stem cell research market,” said Dominique Baly, President of Millipore’s Bioscience Division. "Our agreement with SCS reflects the significant investments we are making to serve the needs of researchers exploring the therapeutic value of stem cells. We chose SCS because their media worked extremely well in growing hESCs in a variety of different stem cell lines and conditions and they had the most advanced development of serum-free media.” Under the terms of the agreement, Millipore will manufacture, market and sell the new media under the brand name HEScGRO Embryonic Stem Cell Medium. SCS will receive royalties from all future sales of HEScGRO Embryonic Stem Cell Medium. The agreement builds on the successful collaboration between Millipore and SCS formed in 2005 to commercialize media for the growth of mouse embryonic cells. Millipore’s ESGRO Complete™ is the leading product used by researchers today for mouse stem cell experimentation. SCS Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Hugh Ilyine said: "As researchers investigate using stem cells to create cures for new diseases, the use of hESCs are critical. By providing serum-free media to grow hESCs, scientists can be confident that the effects they are studying in the laboratory are from the cell itself and not from animal products in the media. The expansion of our agreement with Millipore will allow researchers to now benefit from products offering superior performance in both mouse and human stem cell research.” Millipore expects to have HEScGRO Embryonic Stem Cell Medium available for commercial distribution before the end of the year. HEScGRO has been shown to be effective at growing many different human embryonic stem cell lines, including lines that have been approved by the U.S. government for use in federally sponsored research, as well as the "Mel” hES cell lines derived by Stem Cell Sciences in Australia and distributed by Millipore. Millipore offers a broad range of products and reagents for stem cell research through its Chemicon product line, which is part of the company’s Research Reagents Business Unit. Millipore Research Reagents Business Unit creates innovative and high quality biological reagents for life science researchers to conduct their experiments consistently. These biological reagents include antibodies, dyes and biochemical reagents that are used to identify and measure cellular interactions, cell signaling and other cellular functions. About Millipore Millipore is a leading provider of products and services that improve productivity in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and in clinical, analytical and research laboratories. The Company is organized in two operating divisions. Its Bioprocess Division helps to enable pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to optimize their manufacturing productivity, ensure the quality of drugs, and scale up the production of difficult-to-manufacture biologics. Its Bioscience division helps to optimize laboratory productivity and workflows by providing reagents, kits and other enabling technologies and products for life science research and development. Millipore has a deep understanding of its customers' research and manufacturing process needs, and offers reliable and innovative tools, technologies and services. The Company is part of the S&P 500 Index and employs approximately 5,800 employees in more than 47 facilities worldwide. For additional information on Millipore Corporation, please visit its website at: www.millipore.com. About Stem Cell Sciences Stem Cell Sciences plc (SCS, AIM: STEM) is a global biotechnology company, established in Melbourne, Australia in 1994, providing products in the burgeoning stem cell research and drug discovery markets, in addition to the targeted development of cell-based therapies for neurodegenerative disease and injury. The Company has established a leading intellectual property (IP) and technology portfolio that enables the commercial application of stem cells in drug discovery, providing the Company with early-stage revenue streams and technology development for at scale cell production of SCS cell-based therapeutics. SCS operates as a group of independent operations with laboratories in Scotland, Japan and Australia, each of which is affiliated with an academic centre of excellence. These include the Institute of Stem Cell Research (ISCR), Edinburgh, UK, RIKEN Centre for Development Biology, Kobe, Japan and the Australian Stem Cell Centre, Melbourne, Australia. For further information on the company please visit www.stemcellsciences.com. Forward Looking Statements: The matters discussed herein, as well as in future oral and written statements by management of Millipore Corporation that are forward-looking statements, are based on current management expectations that involve substantial risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. Potential risks and uncertainties that could affect Millipore's future operating results include, without limitation, the inability to successfully integrate Serologicals or other acquired businesses, failure to achieve design wins into our pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers’ manufacturing design phase for a particular drug; delay, suspension or termination of a customer’s volume production; lack of availability of raw materials or component products on a timely basis; regulatory delay in the approval of new therapeutics; limitations on cash flow for operations and investment due to increased debt service obligations; the inability to establish and maintain necessary product and process quality levels; reduced demand for cell culture products using bovine serum; the inability to realize the expected benefits of development, marketing, licensing and other alliances; competitive factors such as new membrane or chromatography technology; the inability to achieve anticipated cost benefits of our supply chain initiative; risks relating to our concentration of principal manufacturing operations; the inability to utilize technology in current or planned products due to overriding rights by third parties; potential environmental liabilities; conditions in the economy in general and in the bioscience and bioprocess markets in particular; foreign exchange fluctuations; reduced private and government research funding; exposure to product liability claims; and difficulties inherent in transferring or outsourcing of manufacturing operations. Please refer to our filings with the SEC, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, for more information on these and other risks that could cause actual results to differ.