Tripep is granted loan remission by Industrifonden


HUDDINGE, Sweden, Dec. 19, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Tripep has received remission of half the loan of SEK 20 million from Industrifonden. As announced earlier, Tripep had applied for remission of the SEK 20 million loan that the company took in 2000 for development of the GPG project, on the basis of the negative results of the CTN002 clinical study with GPG. According to the loan agreement, it was possible for Industrifonden to grant remission wholly or partly of the debt of the borrower if Industrifonden found that the results from the project were wholly or partly unusable in the borrower's business operations.

As the project has regained its potential through the identification of alfaHGA, Tripep and Industrifonden have jointly arrived at a solution by which Industrifonden grants remission of SEK10 million, which thus becomes available for the company's operations. According to the agreement, Industrifonden will return its options for acquisition of 75,000 Tripep shares.

"We have left the past behind us and can now concentrate fully on alfaHGA, which can become a completely new type of drug against HIV. Work continues according to plan, and we estimate that the project will be in its clinical phase by the autumn of 2004," says Anders Vahlne, Head of Research.

For more information, please contact: Johan Ihre, CEO Phone +46 8-449 84 80, mobile +46 707-33 44 25 E-mail: johan.ihre@tripep.seor

Anders Vahlne, Head of Research Phone +46 8-5858 1313, mobile +46 709-28 05 28 E-mail: anders.vahlne@labmed.ki.se

Tripep is a biotechnology research company that develops and commercialises candidate drugs based on patented technologies: - research and development of a potential HIV-inhibiting drug, - preclinical research focusing on the development of therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines against HIV and Hepatitis C, and - the RAS (R) technology platform.

For more details of the company's technologies, please refer to the company's web site at www.tripep.se

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