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biota news Biota Secures Korean Distributor for FLU OIA®28 October 2003
Biota Holdings Limited (ASX: BTA) announced today that it has signed an agreement with Dong Shin Pharma
Co Ltd of Korea for the distribution of Biota's influenza diagnostic assay, FLU OIA®, in Korea. Dong Shin is a major supplier of vaccines to the Korean market, including influenza vaccine, and has a growing portfolio of
diagnostic products.
Under the agreement Dong Shin will obtain regulatory approval for the assay in Korea and will be the
exclusive distributor in that country. Registration in Korea is expected to take several months, after which the
diagnostic can be sold. The product will continue to be manufactured by Biota's partner in the US, Thermo Electron (formerly Thermo BioStar).

"This is the first successful step in Biota's plan to expand distribution of our diagnostic in the Asian region.
Dong Shin is an excellent partner for Biota in Korea, and has a long-term view to building the market for our product," said Biota CEO, Peter Molloy. "We expect to secure other distributors in Asia and Europe over the
next year."

Despite active vaccination programs, the social and economic toll of influenza remains high, particularly in higher risk paediatric and elderly populations. Reports indicate that in the US alone, 150,000 hospitalisations
and 40,000 deaths occur each year from the disease and its complications. In Asia the need to for flu
diagnostics has been accentuated by the need to discriminate influenza from the influenza-like illness, SARS. In Korea the influenza diagnostic market, while still small in sales value, has grown by four-fold since 2000,
partly attributed to the growing elderly, at-risk population.