Pelias AG - New Biotech Startup to Fight Hospital Infections

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VIENNA, Austria, December 9

- Pelias AG Announced Today the Start of its Operations.
Headquartered at the Campus Vienna Biocenter in Vienna, Pelias Will
Focus on the Development of Novel Products for the Prevention and
Treatment of Hospital-acquired Infections, Usually Called Nosocomial
Infections.

Foundation

The foundation of Pelias is based on a strong global partnership
between Intercell and Parteurop, who joined forces to build up a new
biotech company by combining their expertise, technologies and
product candidates. The start up is seed financed primarily through
Intercell and an atypical silent partnership of Kapital & Wert. The
company will also seek to obtain public subsidies. With licensed
technologies from Chiron and Intercell, Pelias' mission is to
develop novel vaccines and antibody-based therapies for the
prevention and treatment of hospital-acquired infections. The
company's lead product is a novel vaccine licensed from Chiron
against Pseudomonas infection, which has already been in clinical
trials.

Nosocomial infections are one of the major causes of death and
serious illness worldwide and result in annual burden of US$20Bn in
the developed world.

"An advanced product, enabling technologies, an excellent team as
well as strong financial support offered a unique opportunity to
address this area of high unmet medical need," states Gerd
Zettlmeissl, CEO Intercell AG. "Intercell will retain and emphasize
its focus on its advanced products and development pipeline while
Pelias' core competence will be the development of products against
nosocomial infections."

Robust product pipeline and successful technologies

Pelias has started its business with three key projects targeting
important pathogens in hospital infections: Pseudomonas,
Enterococcus and Klebsiella.

The Pseudomonas product candidate is licensed from Chiron and has
already achieved a clinical proof of concept in a Phase IIa clinical
trial. For the Enterococcus and Klebsiella projects, Pelias is using
Intercell's proven and highly successful Antigen Identification
Program to identify novel protective antigens. "These two projects
using the valuable Intercell AIP technology and our advanced product
candidate already in clinical development provide our company with
an unique and promising pipeline right from the beginning," states
Mathias Grote, CEO of Pelias.

Medical need

Pseudomonas, Enterococcus and Klebsiella are bacterial infections
acquired by people being in hospital care. The majority of them
cause a variety of disorders, notably pneumonia, urinary tract
infections and sepsis. The incidence of nosocomial infections is
steadily increasing due to a variety of reasons, most notably the
ongoing emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria circulating in
hospitals. Due to the growing problem there is clearly a very large
unmet need to develop effective prophylactic, post exposure and
therapeutic vaccines to effectively combat nosocomial infections.
Despite this obvious urgent need, there are only a very few products
of this type currently in development within the pharmaceutical and
biotechnology industries.

Network of excellence

Founded out of a strong global partnership, Pelias combines the know-
how and expertise of leading experts in the field of infectious
diseases. Mathias Grote, former Senior Vice President of Commercial
Operations at Intercell will lead the company as CEO. Before joining
Intercell, Mathias Grote gained a broad experience in senior
management functions in development, manufacturing and business
development e.g. at Chiron Vaccines. Jacques-Francois Martin, the
former CEO of Pasteur Merieux and President of "The Vaccine Fund",
who was involved in the pharmaceutical, biological and life science
industries with a strong focus on vaccines for more than 30 years,
will chair Pelias' Supervisory Board. "I have always been fascinated
by biotech companies that strike new paths to develop innovative
treatments to overcome huge burdens in our healthcare system.
Pelias, founded by leading vaccine players, combines the excellent
know-how and expertise of a global network in his team", he states.

Together with leading clinicians, scientists and an international
cooperation network, Pelias and its dedicated team is ready to focus
on one of the most important challenges of the 21st century.

"As experienced investor in life sciences we were convinced of
Pelias' business concept and decided to support the company from the
very beginning," states Michael Stranz, Executive Board at Kapital &
Wert.

Key shareholders

Key shareholders include Intercell, Go Equity, Chiron, Parteurop,
Bioalliance and the Management.

About nosocomial infections

Nosocomial infections are bacterial or fungal infections which are
acquired in a hospital setting and cause a variety of severe
infections, many life-threatening such as pneumonia, sepsis and
bacteremia. 2 million infections occur every year and 100,000 annual
deaths in the US alone are due to nosocomial infections. The annual
burden to the society is constantly increasing due to the
antibiotics resistance of the most problematic bacteria.

About Intercell

Intercell AG is a fast growing biotechnology company focusing on the
design and development of novel vaccines for prevention and
treatment of diseases with substantial unaddressed medical need. The
Company's unique position is based on the combination of antigens
and immunizers (adjuvants) derived from its proprietary technology
platforms and its in-house GMP manufacturing facilities. Intercell's
technology has been endorsed by collaborative agreements with a
number of global pharmaceutical companies, including Sanofi Pasteur,
Merck&Co. Inc., SciGen Ltd. and the Statens Serum Institut. The
Company has a broad development pipeline with a vaccine for Japanese
Encephalitis in Phase III, a vaccine for Hepatitis C in Phase II, a
partnered Tuberculosis vaccine in Phase I and five products focused
on infectious diseases in pre-clinical development. Intercell is
listed on the Vienna stock exchange under the symbol "ICLL".

For more information please visit: www.intercell.com

About Kapital & Wert

Kapital & Wert has been established since 1981, has 49 employees and
36,500 customers. Up until now, there have been 56 investments made,
e.g. Zellstoff Pöls AG, Steyrermühl AG, Cosmos, Ankerbrot,
Intercell, Familia-Märkte, Dogro Warenhandel, Vogel & Noot
Landmaschinenfabrik AG, FSG Biosupport Forschungs GmbH, BV
Biotechnologies GmbH, IMS Nanofabrication GmbH. Another 31
precaution real estate funds and 10 closed real estate funds
projects were planned and executed.

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