Evolva in collaboration with Roquette

Reinach, Switzerland, 2 January 2012 - Evolva Holding SA (SIX: EVE) today announced the signing of an agreement with Roquette Frères SA for joint research and development of novel and optimised biosynthetic production routes for an ingredient with important applications in food products. Roquette is a world leader in the area of nutrition and other products based on raw vegetable materials.

“We are very happy to be teaming up with Evolva. We believe that Evolva’s technology will provide new impulses in our search for innovative products and improved production processes. Ultimately these efforts are aimed at strengthening our leading position in providing high quality ingredients in a sustainable manner from renewable resources” said Thierry Marcel, Corporate Research Director of Roquette.

The collaboration will run for up to 4.5 years and involve c. 7% of Evolva’s R&D headcount. The work will include the application of Evolva’s technology to improve fermentation routes, strain improvement and pilot scale-up.

Roquette will pay Evolva an upfront technology access fee as well as research fees during the project period. In addition, Evolva may receive milestone payments based on the extent to which certain research and commercial objectives are reached, plus potential payments based on the value created by the project. The total of technology access and milestone payments will be a single-digit CHF million amount.

Pascal Longchamp, Chief Business Officer of Evolva, said “This collaboration further validates the capability of our technology platform to impact multiple industries, and we are looking forward to working with Roquette. We share with Roquette core values in the development of sustainable processes from natural and renewable resources and we are pleased to team up with a company dedicated to exploring innovative solutions for their customers.”

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About Evolva Holding SA

Evolva strives to improve people’s lives by applying its technology and other resources to the discovery and development of new products and processes that benefit the health, well-being and financial economy of patients, consumers and partner companies around the world. Evolva uses biosynthetic and evolutionary technologies to create and optimise small molecule compounds and their production routes. Our approach differs from that of the mainstream in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. We are active in pharmaceutical development (infectious disease and complications of diabetes) as well as in consumer healthcare and nutrition (food ingredients, personal care and crop protection). We have partnered projects as well as proprietary programmes ongoing. More information: www.evolva.com.

About Roquette

The business of Roquette, a French family group with an international dimension, is the processing of vegetable raw materials: maize, wheat, potatoes, peas and micro-algae. Among the 5 global leaders in the starch manufacturing industry, it offers its customers a wide range of products and solutions in the fields of human nutrition, pharmacy-cosmetology, paper-board, chemistry-bioindustry and animal nutrition. Present in over 100 countries, Roquette has a turnover of 2.5 billion euros. The Group employs more than 6,600 staff. Its development is based on a strategy giving preference to the long-term, innovation and the commitment to achieve, focused on health-nutrition and plant-based chemistry. Its mission: « Serve men and women by offering the best of nature ».

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This press release contains specific forward-looking statements, e.g. statements including terms like believe, assume, expect or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may result in a substantial divergence between the actual results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and those explicitly or implicitly presumed in these statements. Against the background of these uncertainties readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The company assumes no responsibility to update forward-looking statements or to adapt them to future events or developments.