CHIRAL TECHNOLOGIES, INC. Announces Re-issue of Major Patent, CHIRALCEL OD from US Patent Office --US PTO--.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

BIOWIRE2K

EXTON, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 15, 2004

Daicel Chemical Industries, Ltd. of Japan announced today that the US Patent Office (US PTO) has granted a re-issue patent RE. 38,435 dated February 24, 2004 with additional claims for one of the key chiral chromatography patents assigned to Daicel.

Thomas B. Lewis, President & CEO of CHIRAL TECHNOLOGIES, INC., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daicel, stated: "This patent is very important since it further expands our coverage of the cellulosic chiral columns and bulk chiral stationary phases (CSPs). This now provides us with broader coverage of CHIRALCEL(R) OD(R) and related chiral stationary phases through 2006. CHIRALCEL(R) OD(R) is probably the most well- recognized chiral HPLC column used by chromatographers around the world."

Professor Yoshio Okamoto and co-workers from Osaka University and Daicel are the inventors of this patent. The patent was issued originally as Patent No. 4,818,394, and will expire in 2006.

Chiral chromatography represented a break-through technology in the 1980s when the polysaccharide-based CSPs became commercially available. This led to the analytical and preparative separation of enantiomeric compounds, and resulted in an increased interest in the in vivo pharmacological fate of the individual enantiomers. Enantiomers are molecules that are identical chemically, but exhibit mirror image molecular structures, and as such, the two often exhibit significantly different therapeutic effects when used as pharmaceuticals. HPLC chromatography is the most widely used method for separating and analyzing enantiomers, and is generally the quality control method of choice in the production process of chiral drugs. Daicel introduced its first chiral chromatography columns, based on the research results of Professor Okamoto, in the 1980s.

CHIRAL TECHNOLOGIES, INC. is the market leader in chiral chromatography products and services, offering a broad line of HPLC/SFC chiral columns and bulk chiral stationary phases that are used in commercial scale separations with SMB systems. Its technical center in Exton, PA offers product support and an outsourcing service for the preparative separation of enantiomers utilizing batch HPLC, batch SFC, and SMB chromatography systems.