Roche delighted about pool extension

Roche’s Board of Directors and Corporate Executive Committee is delighted about the extension of the shareholders’ pooling agreement which the successors of the the company founder Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche announced today. As a result, the families Hoffmann and Oeri will continue to hold the majority of the company’s shares.

“For Roche this pool extension represents an important affirmation of the long term commitment of our majority shareholders to an independent development of the company”, commented Franz B. Humer, Roche’s Chairman of the Board. “Particularly in these economically turbulent times we are very happy being able to count on such a highly stable group of shareholders keen in the long-term success of Roche”, Franz B. Humer pointed out.
About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world’s leading research-focused healthcare groups in the fields of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. As the world’s biggest biotech company and an innovator of products and services for the early detection, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, the Group contributes on a broad range of fronts to improving people’s health and quality of life. Roche is the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics and drugs for cancer and transplantation, and is a market leader in virology. It is also active in other major therapeutic areas such as autoimmune diseases, inflammatory and metabolic disorders and diseases of the central nervous system. In 2007 sales by the Pharmaceuticals Division totalled 36.8 billion Swiss francs, and the Diagnostics Division posted sales of 9.3 billion francs. Roche has R&D agreements and strategic alliances with numerous partners, including majority ownership interests in Genentech and Chugai, and invested over 8 billion Swiss francs in R&D in 2007. Worldwide, the Group employs about 80,000 people. Additional information is available on the Internet at www.roche.com.