J.P. Morgan Appointed Successor Depositary Bank for Roche ADR Program

London.- J.P. Morgan announced today that it has been appointed as the successor depositary bank for the American Depositary Receipt (ADR) program of Roche Holding Ltd (Roche), one of the world’s leading research-focused healthcare groups in the fields of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche’s ADR (RHHBY), a leading program on OTCQX, is also one of the top-five OTC ADR programs in Western Europe by value, and is among the most actively traded with $4.9 billion in depositary receipts (DRs) traded annually*.

Roche joins a strong list of major European pharmaceutical firms for which J.P. Morgan acts as ADR depositary including: AstraZeneca plc, Novartis AG, sanofi-aventis, and Shire plc.

Claudine Gallagher, global head of Depositary Receipts at J.P. Morgan, said, “We are proud to have Roche, a renowned pharmaceutical company, join our roster of clients. We look forward to working with the company to help it benefit from U.S. demand for foreign equities.”

J.P. Morgan created the first-ever DR in 1927 for British retailer Selfridges. Today the overall DR market comprises more than 1,800 companies from over 75 countries in the form of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) or Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs).

For market information on DRs and international equities go to J.P. Morgan’s award-winning Web site www.adr.com. For more information on J.P. Morgan’s DR services go to http://www.jpmorgan.com/visit/adr.

* Annual value calculation based on total value of DR shares traded in 2008. Source: Bloomberg