Venn Life Sciences and Encorium Announce a Business Combination

The management team of the combined entity will be comprised of members of existing management of both Venn and Encorium and will be lead by Mr. Sean Leech, Venn's current CEO. The board of the combined company will be comprised of Venn and Encorium representatives including Dr. Kai Lindevall, Encoriums's current CEO.

Commenting on the announcement, Dr. Lindevall said, "Having spent considerable time evaluating strategic alternatives, in order to bring long-term stability for all Encorium stakeholders, I am very pleased with today's announcement. In particular, I am pleased that the months of planning have yielded a successful outcome and one that will ensure continuity of business for our clients and employees."

Mr. Tony Richardson, Executive Chairman of Venn added "This is a good day for both companies. Our combined management, operational and project teams have many years of clinical and consulting experience in the various forms of clinical development models. This variation of experience will be a critical component to future success in the clinical outsourcing arena.

Concluding the comments, Mr. Sean Leech commented, "All too often outsourcing providers attempt to sell a product to their clients, ignoring the needs of clients. In our combined business, we wish to change this approach, we want to find solutions to our clients' needs and challenges, participate in their development process, understand the outcomes that they need to achieve and jointly develop a plan to ensure those objectives are delivered."

To support its continued expansion the newly combined group will avail of new working capital lines tailored to the specific needs and profile of the business. Working capital facilities will be provided by Partners for Growth (PFG) www.pfgrowth.com . PFG provides custom debt solutions to private and public technology and life science companies and we are pleased to have a creative and flexible capital provider working with us as we grow.