LION bioscience Plans to Sell Its Bioinformatics Business

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & HEIDELBERG, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 20, 2005--LION bioscience AG plans the sale of its bioinformatic business. Management board and supervisory board have decided to conduct a structured tender. In the last weeks several companies expressed their interest in LION's bioinformatics business, especially in LION's most successful product SRS with world wide distribution. A potential and alternative management buyout has been deferred for the time that the public tender is being put into place.

The assumption is that this process will be started in April and completed within the third quarter of this year.

In this context it is also planned that Dr. Thure Etzold, original inventor of the SRS technology and current CEO of LION, will resign from the board in the near future.

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release are forward looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and other applicable U.S. and German laws. These forward-looking statements may include projections, assumptions, estimates, targets, and descriptions of future events. Such statements are based on currently available information and on LION's current expectations as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Many factors could cause the actual results, performance or achievements of LION to be materially different from those that may be projected, expected, targeted, expressed or implied by such statements. All roll-out plans and future dates with respect to completion of development and market release of LION products are target dates only based on the company's current planning and may change in the future. Any delays in the current product release schedule will have a materially adverse effect on the company's targets for fiscal year. We refer you to LION's Annual Reports on Form 20-F, as recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 20, 2004 (Form 20-F/A), in which these and other risk factors are discussed. In the event of any material conflicts between the two documents, Form 20-F - resp. Form 20-F/A - should be relied on. LION expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates, revisions or corrections to any forward-looking statements or historical information contained in this announcement, whether as a result of new information, change of assumptions or business model, future developments or otherwise.