BIRMINGHAM, England, June 30 /PRNewswire/ --

- Revenues up 17%, Freelite(TM) Revenues up 34%

The Binding Site Limited ("The Binding Site" or the "Company"), a privately owned specialist UK diagnostics company, today announces its results for the six months ending 31st March 2008.

Financial Highlights:

6 months ended 6 months % Increase 31 March 2008 ended 31 March 2007 GBPMillion GBPMillion Revenue 18.1 15.5 17% FreeliteTM 5.5 4.1 34% sales EBITDA 3.8 3.5 10%

- Revenue growth of 17%, with sales of Freelite(TM) up 34%

- North American sales up 20%

- Significant targeted investment in sales and marketing, research and development and support areas yielding positive results

- Continued international expansion including successful launch of Spanish branch

- Major advances in long-term research projects, including broad enhancement of Freelite's market position

- Further strengthening of intellectual property (IP) position, with one new patent filed early 2008, and two others due for filing later this year

Commenting on the results, Paul Duncan, Chief Executive Officer of The Binding Site, said:

"The Binding Site enjoyed a good performance in the six months to the end of March 2008, underpinned by growth across the product portfolio and we are on track to hit sales and profit targets for the full year. Continued investment in marketing initiatives has ensured sustained momentum in the uptake of Freelite for the detection and monitoring of Multiple Myeloma worldwide, with sales up 34% despite some destocking in the US market at the end of 2007. We look forward to increased demand for this important product.

"In the second half of 2008 we will continue our focus on product development and marketing initiatives as well as ensuring the Company continues to manage its cost base appropriately. We believe these efforts will continue to yield excellent results for the Company and we are confident for the outlook over the rest of this year."

Financial Review

Gross profit improved by 14% year-on-year, in spite of the impact of the weak dollar. The dollar rate has a significant effect as 50% of the Company's sales are in dollars whereas most of the cost of production is in sterling. The Company increased investment in marketing and support areas by 28%, thus ensuring an adequate platform for future growth. Despite this investment, EBITDA increased by 10% over the period.

Areas of expansion included increased investment in the numbers of Freelite medical education personnel, continued investment in the Canadian sales team and the new branch in Spain, increased investment in research and development and continued investment in IT across the group.

The Company serviced increased repayments of the Term Loan facility and maintained investment in fixed assets.

Operational Review

The market segment in which the Company operates is growing at around 4% per annum driven by increasing demand for in-vitro diagnostic products. Against this background, the Company achieved sales growth of 17%.

The Company committed to a significantly larger marketing budget in 2008 with investment in both Sales and Marketing headcount as well as increased activity across promotional channels. Although the majority of the return on this investment is expected longer term an immediate impact has helped maintain good overall levels of increased top line sales. This growth in sales was derived from two main areas:

Firstly, Freelite - a unique diagnostic test kit developed by The Binding Site used to measure a tumour marker "free light chains" in serum. The presence of elevated levels of free light chains is associated with a form of bone marrow cell cancer called multiple myeloma.

Use of the Freelite assay to quantify free light chains in serum samples is a major advance in detecting and managing patients with this cancer. Having introduced this unique test in 2001, following a series of successful clinical trials, uptake is increasing worldwide and we have seen growth in the first half of this year of 34% in top line sales of Freelite.

Secondly, the supply of autoimmune diagnostic tests. One of the main reasons for increased growth in this area has been the placement of third party automated analysers used to provide a platform for sales of the underlying test kits. This has been particularly effective in the USA, where overall growth for all products was 20% on a local currency basis.

Research and development

Following successful launches of Freelite assays for use on several of the major laboratory instrument suppliers' platforms, we have continued to expand our Freelite kit portfolio. Assays are now manufactured for use on instruments available to the majority of hospital laboratories. In addition we have now successfully completed the beta site testing of our own "Spa plus" laboratory analyser, optimised for the running of Freelite. This bench top instrument is being placed in those laboratories which do not have a suitable platform on which to run Freelite or which have a capacity issue on their current analysers. Several new complementary assays are due for release on the Spa plus in the second half of 2008 and into 2009.

Several new autoimmune enzyme immunoassay products were launched during 2007 enhancing the current portfolio and our competitive position. The current pipeline has been significantly strengthened, with increased investment being allocated to speed up product development.

Complementary products are being developed to further enhance Freelite's market position, including a new panel of unique kits, branded Hevylite(TM), which are currently in clinical trials that are due to report results later in 2008.

Intellectual Property

The Binding Site's IP portfolio was further strengthened with one new patent application filed early 2008 and two further applications due to be filed during the third and fourth quarters 2008.

Outlook

The Company's positive revenue and EBITDA growth has continued into the first half of this financial year. The weakness of the US Dollar is continuing to influence profitability. Growth is expected to continue to be driven by increased demand for Freelite as the impact of the investment in prior years continues to deliver benefit. It is expected that the targeted investment in research and development will result in a higher number of new products being brought to market. The launch of a new portfolio of third party instrumentation based on smaller platforms will allow us to emulate the successful USA instrumentation strategy across Europe and the rest of the world.

Notes to Editors:

About The Binding Site

The Binding Site Ltd. is a British-based company specialising in the research, development and production of immunodiagnostic kits and reagents. The Binding Site manufactures a wide range of high quality and innovative products used in clinical laboratories world-wide. The business is divided into three main areas:-

Freelite(TM), a novel and highly significant assay increasingly used for the diagnosis and monitoring of multiple myeloma (MM), a cancer of cells in the bone marrow. MM is the second most common blood cancer after non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Considered almost untreatable only 20 years ago, huge strides have been made in the successful treatment of multiple myeloma with new drugs becoming available and new treatment regimes being assessed. Freelite has been used as a sensitive marker for the efficacy of some of these newer treatments and has helped clinicians gain a clear understanding of how some of these drugs are benefiting their patients. Furthermore, with numerous different therapies now available, treatment decisions which may have taken weeks or months can now be made in days thanks to the availability of sensitive and reliable results using Freelite. National and International guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of multiple myeloma and associated cancers now include Freelite results as a requirement for monitoring the treatment of patients. Numerous clinical trials are underway to look at the use of Freelite in a range of other malignancies as well as how the results may radically change the management of complications such as renal disease in cancer patients. There are currently approximately 1.5 million Freelite tests performed per annum with the number of analyses increasing at a rate of approx. 50% p.a.

The diagnosis and treatment of patients suffering from autoimmune diseases (caused when the body is unable to distinguish between foreign and self). Many common diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis are autoimmune in origin and The Binding Site manufactures a range of diagnostic assays and reagents used in hospital laboratories worldwide to help diagnose and monitor the treatment of these diseases, e.g. antiphospholipid syndrome, vasculitis and coeliac disease.

Products used for the detection of immunodeficiency. These include the inherited or acquired disorders of the immune system and products used in donor selection and manufacture of vaccines. The Binding Site has been and remains a market leader in products for the investigation of these diseases.

For more information please see http://www.bindingsite.co.uk

Enquiries: The Binding Site Paul Duncan Tel: +44-121-436-1000 Financial Dynamics Deborah Scott / Lara Mott Tel: +44-20-7831-3113

Enquiries: The Binding Site, Paul Duncan, Tel: +44-121-436-1000; Financial Dynamics, Deborah Scott / Lara Mott, Tel: +44-20-7831-3113