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Heckmann to Become President & CEO of Chiral Technologies Inc.

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 February 2006, 18:00 CST

Hisao Nishimura, Chairman of the Board of Chiral Technologies Inc., announced today that Thomas B. Lewis, Ph.D., President & CEO, would retire in the second quarter of 2006. Chiral Technologies Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Daicel Chemical Industries, Ltd. of Japan. Dr. Lewis has held this position since 1992.

Succeeding Dr. Lewis will be Dieter Heckmann, currently President of Chiral Technologies Europe (Strasbourg, France), also a subsidiary of Daicel. Effective with Dr. Lewis' retirement, Mr. Heckmann will hold the position of President and CEO of both Chiral Technologies Inc. and Chiral Technologies Europe.

In making this announcement, Dr. Nishimura stated: "Chiral Technologies has grown significantly since Tom Lewis joined the company fourteen years ago. All of us at Daicel are grateful to him for leading this business from a start-up to an important component of the Daicel Group. As we plan for the future, the management of Daicel is confident that Dieter Heckmann will successfully lead the businesses with a coordinated focus on the Western markets."

Chiral Technologies Inc. is the largest supplier of chiral chromatography products in North America. During Dr. Lewis' tenure, the field of chiral chromatography has grown from analytical chromatography products to a recognized production technology for small molecule pharmaceutical compounds. Chiral chromatography is now used throughout the entire pharmaceutical development process, from discovery and early stage R&D, to the separation of single enantiomers required for process development and piloting, and in commercial scale manufacturing processes.

Mr. Heckmann has a lengthy career in the industrial chromatography field, having started with Eurochrom/Knauer GmbH of Berlin in 1988, and then moved in the mid-90s to UOP in Heidelberg as Sales Manager SMB-Systems. He joined Chiral Technologies Europe as Director of Marketing in 1997. In 2001 he was promoted to President of Chiral Technologies Europe.

Dr. Lewis started his career with Monsanto Company in St. Louis as a senior research chemist, and during his employment there he served in positions of increasing responsibility, and achieved the position of Vice President/General Manager in the chemical business unit. He joined Celgene Corporation as a Senior VP in 1988 and then moved to Chiral Technologies Inc. as CEO.

Source: Business Wire

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