DSM INVESTS IN BIOMATERIALS COMPANY OXFORD PERFORMANCE MATERIALS

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DSM INVESTS IN BIOMATERIALS COMPANY OXFORD PERFORMANCE MATERIALS
21 June 2006 - DSM Coating Resins

DSM Venturing, the corporate venturing unit of Royal DSM N.V., today announced that it has invested USD 1.2 mln in the biomaterials company Oxford Performance Materials. This investment links on to DSM’s innovation ambitions in the emerging business area of biomedical materials, which is an important element of DSM’s strategy Vision 2010, Building on Strengths.

OPM markets biocompatible high performance polymers for use in medical device applications such as catheters and implantable devices. OPM’s polymers offer advantages over metals in terms of improved biocompatibility, process flexibility, radiolucense and tailored formulations to meet biomechanical and design criteria. Steve Hartig, Vice President EBA Biomedical Materials explains: "OPM’s activities provide useful insight into developments in the field of advanced biomedical polymers, which connects closely to DSM’s position in polymers and biomedical applications."

Medical devices including drug/device combinations are a rapidly growing segment of the health care industry. These innovative therapies are increasingly used in order to bring the therapy or drug as close as possible to the impacted area of the body allowing for faster and more efficient medical treatments. A common theme across these therapies is the importance of materials as a core technology.

Today DSM already offers a number of material products to the healthcare industry like medical coatings and Dyneema Purity for use in surgical implants. In the EBA Biomedical Materials DSM aims to strongly expand this position and develop areas for future growth. Target areas for future innovation are drug delivery systems such as coatings for drug eluting stents and polymeric scaffolds for tissue regeneration. The EBA Biomedical Materials draws upon DSM’s expertise in the fields of polymers, coatings and material sciences combined with its strong position in life sciences. DSM actively exploits venturing and licensing opportunities to boost the innovation process in this field and will set up business models that are typical for knowledge-based rather than for production-based businesses, including the licensing of intellectual property.

http://www.dsm.com/en_US/html/dcr/home.htm

About: DSM Coating Resins
DSM Coating Resins is one of the business groups making up DSM’s Performance Materials cluster. It specializes in the development, manufacture and sale of resins for coating systems. It is a global supplier of polyester resins for powder coatings, can coatings and coil coatings. The company also plays an important role as a resins supplier to the decorative coatings market, protective and maintenance coatings market, and industrial coatings markets. DSM Coating Resins has production sites in many countries in Europe, North America and Asia.

DSM's activities are grouped into three clusters: Life Science Products, Performance Materials and Industrial Chemicals. DSM Nutritional Products will remain a seperate entity for the time being. The group has annual sales (pro forma, including the recent acquisition - renamed DSM Nutritional Products) of approximately EUR 8 billion and employs in the region of 25 000 people around the world. Its headquarters are based in The Netherlands.

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