VENLO, The Netherlands, May 15, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- QIAGEN N.V. (Nasdaq:QGEN) (Frankfurt:QIA), today announced, that Dr. Werner Brandt and Heino von Prondzynski agreed to be nominated for election to join QIAGEN's Board of Supervisory Directors. Both candidates will stand for election at QIAGEN's Annual General Meeting being held in Venlo on June 20, 2007.
"We are very pleased to be able to announce the candidacies of Heino von Prondzynski and Dr. Werner Brandt for election to QIAGEN's Supervisory Board," said Prof. Dr. Detlev Riesner, QIAGEN's Chairman of the Supervisory Board. "In their roles as directors, Mr. Prondzynski and Dr. Brandt will provide invaluable insight, advice and guidance as QIAGEN's contributions and products further expand the frontiers of science and healthcare and build value for our customers, shareholders and employees.
"We would also like to take the opportunity to thank Dr. Franz Wirtz and Dr. Heinrich Hornef for their immense contributions to helping us achieve the strong position we are in today," he continued. "After 18 years and 7 years, respectively, as members of our Supervisory Board, both members will be retiring from the QIAGEN Supervisory Board at our Annual General Meeting. Their service to QIAGEN and our shareholders was extremely valuable."
Heino von Prondzynski retired in 2005 from Roche (SWX:RO) as Chief Executive Officer of Roche Diagnostics and Member of the Executive Committee of the Roche Group. He brings to QIAGEN a wealth of experience as a leader in the diagnostics industry and played key roles in building the molecular diagnostics industry. Prior to joining Roche in 2000, Mr. von Prondzynski worked at Chiron, first as General Manager and Chief Executive Officer in Germany and Italy, later as President of the Vaccines Division in Emeryville/USA. Mr. von Prondzynski started his career with Bayer in Germany as sales representative and worked later in Austria and Brazil as General Manager. He studied mathematics, geography and history at Westfaelische Wilhelms University of Muenster in Germany.
Dr. Werner Brandt joined SAP (NYSE:SAP) (Frankfurt/DAX:SAP) in February 2001 as Chief Financial Officer and member of the SAP Executive Board. From 1999 to 2001, he was a member of the Executive Board and Chief Financial Officer of the German-American healthcare company Fresenius Medical Care AG (NYSE:FMS) (Frankfurt/DAX:FME), where he also served as labor relations director. From 1992 to 1999, Dr. Brandt was a member of the management board of Baxter Deutschland GmbH and Vice President for European operations. In this capacity, he was responsible for Baxter's financial operations in Europe. Dr. Brandt began his career in 1981 at the former Price Waterhouse GmbH (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) in Frankfurt. Dr. Brandt completed his doctorate in business administration from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, in 1991, after studying business administration at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, from 1976 to 1981.
Dr. Brandt also agreed to be nominated for election by the Supervisory to the role of Chairman of the QIAGEN's Audit Committee.
About QIAGEN:
QIAGEN N.V., a Netherlands holding company, is the leading provider of innovative sample and assay technologies and products. QIAGEN's products are considered standards in areas such pre-analytical sample preparation and assay solutions in research for life sciences, applied testing and molecular diagnostics. QIAGEN has developed a comprehensive portfolio of more than 500 proprietary, consumable products and automated solutions for sample collection, nucleic acid and protein handling, separation, and purification and open and target specific assays. The company's products are sold to academic research markets, to leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, to applied testing customers (such as in forensics, veterinary, biodefense and industrial applications) as well as to molecular diagnostics laboratories. QIAGEN employs more than 1,900 people worldwide. QIAGEN products are sold through a dedicated sales force and a global network of distributors in more than 40 countries. In this press release QIAGEN is using the term molecular diagnostics. The use of this term is in reference to certain countries, such as the United States, limited to products subject to regulatory requirements. Current QIAGEN molecular diagnostics products are 34 EU CE IVD assays, six EU CE IVD sample preparation products, one 510k PAX RNA product, nine China SFDA IVD assays and 98 general purpose reagents. Further information about QIAGEN can be found at www.qiagen.com.
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Certain of the statements contained in this news release may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. To the extent that any of the statements contained herein relating to QIAGEN's products, markets, strategy or operating results are forward-looking, such statements are based on current expectations that involve a number of uncertainties and risks. Such uncertainties and risks include, but are not limited to, risks associated with management of growth and international operations (including the effects of currency fluctuations and risks of dependency on logistics), variability of operating results, the commercial development of the applied testing markets, clinical research markets and proteomics markets, nucleic acid-based molecular diagnostics market, and genetic vaccination and gene therapy markets, competition, rapid or unexpected changes in technologies, fluctuations in demand for QIAGEN's, products (including fluctuations due to the level and timing of customers' funding, budgets, and other factors), our ability to obtain regulatory approval of our infectious disease panels, difficulties in successfully adapting QIAGEN's products to integrated solutions and producing such products, the ability of QIAGEN to identify and develop new products and to differentiate its products from competitors' products, market acceptance of QIAGEN's new products and the integration of acquired technologies and businesses. For further information, refer to the discussions in reports that QIAGEN has filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).