Dr. Hannu Silvennoinen joins as a Senior Partner
19-08-2003,

PRESS RELEASE (August 19, 2003)

Replicon Group strengthens the expertice in corporate finance and strategic alliances: Dr. Hannu Silvennoinen has been invited to new Senior Partner of Replicon Corporate Finance

Replicon announced today that it has taken important steps to enhance its resources to support its evolving business strategy and provide for the future leadership in the Life-Sciences -sector. Reflecting the growth of the company's corporate finance and business development outsourcing capabilities, Dr. Silvennoinen joined Replicon as a Senior Partner, with operations responsibility for strategic alliances and partnering arrangements in the Nordic Life-Sciences sector.
Dr. Hannu Silvennoinen has several years of business development and investment banking experience in the domestic and international pharmaceutical and biotechnology environment as well as hands-on experience of international strategic alliances and partnerships.

Before joining Replicon Dr Silvennoinen has been Senior Manager and Advisor at PCA Corporate Finance Oy, member of the LBKiel Group, providing financial services for Life-Science companies. Prior to this Hannu worked as a Financial Analyst in an investment banking arm of a major Nordic bank, supporting also the corporate finance department in healthcare transactions.

Earlier, Hannu spent 8 years in a fully integrated international pharmaceutical company working mainly in the area of product planning and licensing. Hannu was responsible for negotiating and closing several European and US licensing deals where the total value of upfront and milestone payments exceeded USD 50m. Still earlier in his career, Hannu worked as a fully licensed physician in the University hospital of Helsinki and as a Senior Officer in the Finnish National Agency for Medicines (drug approval authority). Hannu also holds the Finnish Medical Association¥s degree of Specialist Competence in Pharmaceutical Medicine.

Dr. Silvennoinen is happy with the invitation: "Replicon's highly specialized and quality-oriented services for technology companies and unique team of finance and business professionals makes a sound base for broadening the network, for serving the Finnish Life-Sciences sector even better than before."

CEO Petteri Hirvonen is convinced about the contribution Dr. Silvennoinen brings: "We're operating in a more and more competitive and networking environment, especially in the world of biotechnology and drug development where traditional walls begin to fall down. In Finland, there are no technology-specialized corporate finance houses with relevant, value adding biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry expertise. Hannu brings a very special extension to our team, to take care of that strategic alliances and biopartnership phenomena." The appointment is an important step for Replicon in establishing itself as the highly specialized corporate finance and consulting house providing value-adding business and finance solutions for Nordic growth companies.

A list of Replicon's professionals and individual biographies can be found in the "Professionals" section of the company's website: www.replicon.fi

For further information, please contact:

Replicon Corporate Finance Oy
Petteri Hirvonen, CEO
+358 (09)4111 03 47
petteri.hirvonen@replicon.fi

Replicon Group provides strategic, financial, and legal solutions that facilitate business activities, efficiency, and increase profitability of corporations and other organizations. Our core competence is in the corporate solutions that facilitate and govern growth of businesses based on innovation. An important part of our activities is continuous learning. We want to find and develop most suitable solutions to our customer needs. Replicon Group's special focus area is Life-Science -sector including: Biotechnology, Medical Technology, Pharmaceuticals / Biopharmaceuticals, Diagnostics, Bioinformatics as well as IT-Solutions. The main shareholders in Replicon Corporate Finance Oy are its key management, holding majority of the company's shares. Replicon's homepage is www.replicon.fi