BioPorto launches Rat NGAL ELISA Kit of its own production

BioPorto has launched a new ELISA test for the determination of the acute
kidney injury marker NGAL in rats. The new Rat NGAL ELISA Kit is the first to
be completely produced in BioPorto's own facilities. 

Acute kidney injury is a complication that may arise in serious illnesses or
after risky medical or surgical interventions. This complication may affect
about 5% of all hospitalized patients in the western world and entails at least
a doubling of mortality. There is currently no treatment for acute kidney
injury other than renal replacement therapy (e.g. dialysis), which is
inconvenient for the patient and expensive for health services. NGAL
determination allows kidney injury to be detected almost as soon as it occurs,
and not at the later stage when the consequences of impaired kidney function
can be detected by existing routine tests and the damage has been consolidated. 

It is expected that the availability of NGAL ELISAs for both animals and human
patients will show synergic effects. The good results already obtained in
patients have stimulated the demand for NGAL tests in animals. It is also
expected that NGAL research in laboratory animals will promote an increased
routine use of NGAL determinations in patients. The launching of this new rat
NGAL test is therefore also expected to have a positive effect on the human
NGAL market. 

BioPorto has given high priority to launching a rat NGAL kit, as rats are among
the most frequently used laboratory animals for research on kidney damage. The
rat NGAL test can thus be used in the development of new treatments for kidney
damage, to detect nephrotoxic side effects of new drugs, and for basic science
research on kidney injury and kidney diseases. 

It is therefore expected that the use of NGAL as a toxicological marker of
kidney damage in rats could prove to be of considerable importance in the
preclinical evaluation of new pharmacological products, as it is much cheaper
and easier to determine NGAL than to carry out a microscopic examination of the
kidney itself, which is the typical experimental end-point today. BioPorto's
expectations are supported by an incipient demand for animal NGAL ELISAs from
the pharmaceutical industry and the CROs (contract research organizations) that
carry out much of the industry's testing, as well as from large publicly-funded
international research institutions. 

The new Rat NGAL ELISA Kit is the first kit to be entirely produced in
BioPorto's own facilities. It is thus the first result of the process
development initiated to establish the company's own production, with a view to
securing, accelerating and cost-cutting on the company's kit production. The
present kit is expected to be followed by a series of further ELISA kits, in
the first instance for determining NGAL in other laboratory animals. 

Turnover of the new test has been taken into account in the budget for 2008, so
that the financial expectations for the current year are unchanged. 

Further information:
Thea Olesen, CEO
Christina Tønnesen, Investor Relations
Tel.: +45 4529 0000
E-mail: investor@bioporto.com