Genitope deal sparks surge in Chromos shares January 13, 2007 Vancouver Sun By Gillian Shaw Shares in Chromos Molecular Systems Inc. rose nearly 25 per cent Friday on news that Genitope Corp. has entered an agreement to use the Burnaby company’s technology platform in its biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The announcement of the agreement marked another step in the fulfillment of Chromos’s pledge to roll out a series of licensing agreements for its ACE system, which is used to generate cell lines needed to manufacture biopharmaceutical products. “A lot of people in the stock community have been following the company and looking to see the contracts starting and here is another,” said Chromos chief financial officer Jeff Charpentier. “It is the second of what will hopefully be a multitude of additional contracts that will be coming for the company. “It is in the business plan to take the technology which has been years in development and turn it into commercialization.” The companies declined to release financial details of the agreement but Charpentier said investors appear to welcome the news around Chromos’s leading revenue generator. The ACE System technology is licensed non-exclusively to third parties, with Pfizer Inc. the company’s largest customer to date. “People like to see revenues coming in,” said Charpentier. He said, while Friday’s stock j ump to 18.5 cents from Thursday’s close of 15 cents a shares doesn’t translate into big numbers, it “certainly is a positive indication.” “This company went public in 2000 and it has been off the radar screens for a couple of years now,” he said. “There has been a concerted effort to make sure people are following us and as events like this happen, it is reflected in the stock market. “It is a bit of a turnaround story, that’s for sure.” Friday’s news capped a week of small successes on B.C.’s biotech scene, with Vancouver’s iCo Therapeutics announcing a licensing deal that adds it to the list of B.C. companies going into Phase 2 clinical trials. “This is great because it definitely greatly strengthens the overall pipeline for the biotech industry in B.C. and also strengthens iCo’s position significantly,” Karimah Es Sabar, executive director of BC Biotech. Karen Boodram, an analyst with Pacific International Securities, said 2007 promises to be an active year for B.C. and Canadian biotech companies. “I think Canada is in a good position this year because we have a number of late stage companies, companies in advanced trials, in Phase 3 trials for various indications,” she said. That’s coupled with a number of drugs nearing the expiry of their patents, leaving pharmaceutical companies scrambling to fill their product pipelines. “I think there will be a lot more activity this year,” said Boodram. “One from a need on the pharma’s and one from the advanced product in the Canadian market.” Inex Pharmaceuticals was another B.C. biotech that got a lift this week, seeing its stock close at 67 cents a share on the Toronto stock exchange Friday, almost double its early week trading of 35 cents a share. Shares in the previously troubled Burnaby-based company rose on news Tuesday that it entered into a $17-million US deal with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge, Mass.

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