Lisbon, 15th July 2014 – Hovione and Merrion Pharmaceuticals [ESM; MERR] announced today that they have concluded a strategic partnership directed to the use of Merrion’s patented GIPET absorption enhancing technology by Hovione clients. Hovione, an international contract formulation and manufacturing group, will add its commercial reach and technical expertise to generate new products where the use of absorption enhancement through GIPET is appropriate.

Hovione and Merrion Pharmaceuticals have already established a cooperative relationship on technical issues relating to GIPET manufacture, and the agreement provides for the companies to collaborate on the feasibility assessment of GIPET with development compounds introduced by Third Parties. Subject to a decision to proceed, separate technology and manufacturing agreements may be negotiated with the Third Party. In this way Hovione is able to leverage its expertise and international manufacturing capability in order to supply new products from clinical trials to commercialization. In its turn Merrion Pharmaceuticals is positioned to add to its current licenses with external development and marketing partners while keeping operational overheads to a minimum.

In a comment on the agreement, Merrion’s Chief Executive, Dr John Fox noted ‘I am delighted that Merrion Pharmaceuticals is working with a partner of such scale and reputation. Merrion and Hovione represent complementary offerings to companies seeking to develop tablet versions of compounds that otherwise may have been administered by injection or never reached patients at all.’

“We are very pleased to announce this collaboration with Merrion Pharmaceuticals, which extends our current expertise and capabilities in improving solubility of oral drugs by addressing the permeability limitations of BCS classes III and IV drugs. This adds value to our customers and benefits the patients. This agreement reinforces our strategy of combining strengths with other innovative companies like Merrion, to create better medicines,” said Dave Hoffman, Hovione’s Vice President of Sales and Business Development.

About Hovione

Hovione is an international company with over 50 years’ experience in Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient development and compliant manufacture. With four FDA inspected sites in the U.S., China, Ireland, and Portugal, the company focuses on the most demanding customers, in the most regulated markets. The company also offers branded pharmaceutical customers services for the development and compliant manufacture of innovative new drugs, is able to support highly potent compounds and offers all customers proprietary product development and licensing opportunities for drug products. In the inhalation area, Hovione is the only independent company offering such a broad range of services.

About Merrion Pharmaceuticals plc

Merrion Pharmaceuticals plc is a publicly listed (ESM:MERR) pharmaceutical company focused on delivering innovation to the market by partnering with complementary companies to develop patented products. Established in 2003, Merrion is primarily engaged in facilitating the development of oral forms (tablets/capsules) of drugs that have suboptimal absorption, many of which can only be given by injection, through the use of Merrion’sproprietary drug delivery technology platform.