Albemarle(R) Announces Custom Manufacturing Alliance with PharmaCore(R)

BATON ROUGE, La., Feb. 15  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB), a leading global provider of custom manufacturing services, announced today it will partner with PharmaCore to provide manufacturing capabilities for customers with projects that require high volume capacity.

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This alliance allows a seamless technology transfer from PharmaCore to Albemarle, offering PharmaCore customers long term, higher volume capacity for their pharmaceutical projects.  Albemarle's custom manufacturing capabilities include a network of manufacturing assets in South Haven, Mich., Tyrone, Pa. and Orangeburg, S.C., providing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and advanced pharmaceutical intermediate production in a broad range of scale and chemistries.

"We are happy that PharmaCore chose Albemarle's custom manufacturing business unit, Fine Chemistry Services (FCS), to expand their expertise as a custom synthesis provider for their customers," said Steve LeVan, Albemarle's vice president of FCS.  "I am confident that PharmaCore's valued customers will benefit from our premier service and production capabilities and look forward to partnering with each of them to bring their products to market quickly and effectively."

"Our customers already benefit from PharmaCore's med-chem services through current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) pilot plant capabilities.  This new partnership with Albemarle will complete the process," said Brian Swierenga, PharmaCore's vice president of GMP operations.  "We have formed long business relationships with many of our customers, synthesizing first batches for toxicology continuing through lab process development and ultimately providing cGMP material for clinical trials.  This new Albemarle partnership offers an opportunity to transfer that learned technology to full-scale manufacturing."

Albemarle's FCS division is a leading provider of products, custom manufacturing and process scale-up services to a wide variety of industries including pharmaceuticals, crop protection and other specialty markets. The FCS division boasts rapid response time and flexible manufacturing, including two cGMP plants in the United States and several custom manufacturing plants in the United States and Europe.

About Albemarle

Albemarle Corporation, headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is a leading global developer, manufacturer, and marketer of highly-engineered specialty chemicals for consumer electronics, petroleum refining, utilities, packaging, construction, automotive/transportation, pharmaceuticals, crop protection, food-safety and custom chemistry services.  The Company is committed to global sustainability and is advancing its eco-practices and solutions in its three business segments, Polymer Solutions, Catalysts, and Fine Chemicals. Albemarle employs over 4,100 people and serves customers in approximately 100 countries.  To learn more, visit http://www.albemarle.com/.

About PharmaCore

PharmaCore®, Inc., headquartered in High Point, N.C., is an industry leader in custom organic synthesis, using diverse chemistries to produce pharmaceutical intermediates and API's.  The company's business offerings consist of a variety of chemistry outsourcing functions, including: medicinal chemistry services; chemical process and development; cGMP scale-up; and cGMP analytical services.  PharmaCore has served customers globally since 2000.  Additional information is available at http://www.pharmacore.com/.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding Albemarle Corporation's business that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K. 

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