Bioinformatics Expansion Heralds Further Growth for Almac Diagnostics

CRAIGAVON, NORTHERN IRELAND--(Marketwire - December 16, 2009) - Almac Diagnostics - a personalized medicine company announced the extension of its Bioinformatics department.

Almac has shown significant growth in the last year, with employee numbers growing by 15% in the UK and 10% in the US. For the Diagnostics division, this trend continues through the expansion of the Bioinformatics Department and the subsequent opening of a dedicated bioinformatics facility in Manchester (UK).

Professor Paul Harkin, President and Managing Director of Almac Diagnostics said: "With our commitment to the delivery of personalized medicine, we have extended our bioinformatics group to increase our expertise in companion diagnostic development, pharmacodynamic (PD) biomarkers, disease classification and prognostic markers. Our extended expert bioinformatics capability assists our dedication to the advancement of patient care through translational genomic solutions"

Almac's Bioinformatics group specialise in gene selection, disease characterisation and classification. Bioinformatics is well recognised as a major bottleneck in genomics and the expansion of the bioinformatics group greatly expands Almac's capacity and hence reduces this problem.

A webcast on the expansion with Professor Paul Harkin can be viewed at

http://www.almacgroup.com/video/almac-diagnostics-vid.aspx

Notes to Editors

About Almac Diagnostics

Almac Diagnostics is a personalized medicine company with expertise in companion diagnostic development, pharmacodynamic biomarkers, prognostic test development and drug target discovery. We have our own pipeline of IVD tests, which have been developed from FF & FFPE tissue. We utilize our experience, expertise and unique Cancer DSA™ technology to partner with our customers enabling translational genomic solutions.

About Almac Group

The Almac Group comprises five closely integrated divisions offering a broad range of services from R&D, translational genomic services, API manufacture, formulation development, clinical trial supply and technology (IVRS & Web), to commercial-scale manufacture. Almac provides services to more than 600 companies, including all the world leaders in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors.

The company employs over 2,500 individuals and is headquartered in Craigavon, Northern Ireland. US operations are based in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and California. Construction of the company's new $120m North American Headquarters started in July 08 and is expected to be completed 2010. Almac was awarded Northern Ireland's "Business of the Year" award in 2009.

For more information about the Almac Group, please visit www.almacgroup.com or e-mail info@almacgroup.com.