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Highlights of the year

Divestment of the Ingredients Sector
In April 2005, Chr. Hansen Holding A/S signed an agreement with PAI partners, a leading French private equity fund, concerning the divestment of Chr. Hansen Holding’s Food Ingredients Sector. The selling price totalled DKK 8.2 billion on a debt-free basis and the gain on the divestment was DKK 4.2 billion.

Acquisition of Allerbio SA
In June 2005, ALK-Abelló A/S acquired French-based Allerbio SA. The agreement was an important step in ALK-Abelló’s strategy of establishing a presence in the French market, which is the second largest market in Europe for immunotherapy.

GRAZAX® status
The application for regulatory approval of the tablet for treatment of grass pollen allergy – GRAZAX® – filed by ALK-Abelló with the Swedish authorities in June 2004 is still pending.

In January 2005, ALK-Abelló published results from the so-called GT-07 grass tablet study comprising 114 asthma patients at 15 clinics in Denmark and Sweden. The results, which were included in the registration application, showed that ALK-Abelló’s tablet-based allergy treatment reduced hay fever symptoms by 37% in the patient population studied and concurrently reduced the need for symptom-relieving medication by 41% (compared to placebo).

After the end of the financial year, on October 18, 2005, ALK-Abelló published results from a new clinical study GT-08 of 634 patients with grass pollen allergy at 51 clinics in eight European countries. The results showed that GRAZAX® reduced hay fever symptoms by 30% and reduced the need for symptom-relieving medication by 38% (compared to placebo).

The GT-08 findings are thus the latest in the series of favourable results which have successfully demonstrated and confirmed in recent years that GRAZAX® is an effective, safe and convenient treatment that improves patients’ quality of life. More than 1,700 patients with grass pollen allergy have participated in a total of six clinical studies.

The results from the GT-08 study were submitted to the Swedish regulatory authorities in late October. ALK-Abelló’s expectation of being able to launch GRAZAX® on the first European markets in late 2006 is unchanged.