GHENT, Belgium, 22 January 2012 - Ablynx [Euronext Brussels: ABLX] issued the following statement today. On Friday January 20th at 16.30 C.E.T., De Tijd, a Belgian newspaper, published online what was alleged to be a summary of a full article relating to Ablynx, scheduled to appear in print on Saturday January.21st. The online summary contained a number of negative statements and quotations apparently resulting from an interview with Dr Edwin Moses, Chairman and CEO of Ablynx. These statements and quotations were poorly translated or simply not reflective of the interview that took place. Ablynx's stock price fell almost 14% in about an hour and over 400,000 shares were traded in total - two to three times the normal volume. A number of investors that contacted Ablynx directly were clearly completely misled by the summary article and assumed that disappointing news had been announced. In fact, no material new information had been provided during the interview with De Tijd.
On Saturday January 21st, the full printed article appeared in De Tijd. There are significant errors in many of the quotations and statements in this full article but it is more representative of the actual interview than the online summary.
Dr Moses commented: "We have asked De Tijd to remove the online summary from their website which they have done. The full article is now available instead. To assist investors, we are posting on the Ablynx website our English translation of the De Tijd article which we have edited extensively to correct what we believe are material factual errors in statements or quotations. Ablynx has developed into one of Europe's leading public biotechnology companies and it is vital for us and all our stakeholders that the media report our activities properly and accurately."
About Ablynx
Ablynx (http://www.ablynx.com/en/) is a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of Nanobodies® (http://www.ablynx.com/en/research-development/nanobody-technology/understanding-nanobodies/), a novel class of therapeutic proteins based on single-domain antibody fragments, for a range of serious and life-threatening human diseases, including inflammation, haematology, oncology and pulmonary disease. Today, the Company has over 25 programmes in the pipeline (http://www.ablynx.com/en/research-development/pipeline/) and seven Nanobodies in clinical development. Ablynx has ongoing research collaborations and significant partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies, including Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck Serono, Novartis, and has had a collaboration with Pfizer. The Company is headquartered in Ghent, Belgium and currently employs over 290 people. More information can be found on www.ablynx.com (http://www.ablynx.com/en/).
For more information, please contact Ablynx:
Dr Edwin Moses
Chairman and CEO
t: +32 (0)9 262 00 07
m: +44 (0)7771 954 193 /
+32 (0)473 39 50 68
e: edwin.moses@ablynx.com (mailto:edwin.moses@ablynx.com)
Marieke Vermeersch
Investor Relations Manager
t: +32 (0)9 262 00 82
m: +32 (0)479 49 06 03
e: marieke.vermeersch@ablynx.com (mailto:marieke.vermeersch@ablynx.com%20)
The owner of this announcement warrants that:
(i) the releases contained herein are protected by copyright and other applicable laws; and
(ii) they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the
information contained therein.
Source: Ablynx via Thomson Reuters ONE
