RNS Number:4188S
Tepnel Life Sciences PLC
24 November 2003





              Tepnel Life Sciences PLC ("Tepnel" or the Company")


  Tepnel Life Sciences Shareholders Approve Acquisition of Orchid Diagnostics



Manchester, UK. 24 November 2003...Tepnel Life Sciences PLC (AIM: TED). At
today's AGM, all resolutions were passed by the shareholders of Tepnel Life
Sciences enabling the recently announced $4.3m acquisition of Orchid
Diagnostics. The acquisition, which is expected to be completed within the next
two weeks, brings a number of significant operational benefits to Tepnel in the
short-term as well as strategic benefits in the longer term.


The acquisition of Orchid establishes a direct US sales operation for Tepnel,
creating a new distribution channel for existing products and services. Orchid
employ a team of six sales people in the USA, selling products to the clinical
market and through this team Tepnel will now be able to sell its own DNA
purification products and services to the US biomedical market. In the USA,
Orchid will be re-named as Tepnel Lifecodes Corporation and in the UK as Tepnel
Diagnostics Ltd.



Tepnel Lifecodes Corporation is strategically located close to Tepnel's customer
base of major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies on the East Coast of
the USA. Tepnel is targeting its Nucleopure T2000 DNA purification system at
major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.  Three T-2000 systems which
have already been installed at major pharmaceutical companies with more orders
expected to be announced soon.



Commenting on the acquisition Tepnel's CEO, Ben Matzilevich said "this
acquisition, together with the organic growth from our core businesses, will
create a North American sales capability for Tepnel, bringing about much
stronger performance in 2004."



Under the terms of the agreement, Tepnel will acquire the product and services
business of Orchid Diagnostics in the U.S., the U.K. and Belgium, including its
LifeMatchTM system and consumable product line for HLA testing and its Elucigene
TM product line for testing of certain genetic diseases, for $4.3 million in
cash. Tepnel will assume control of Orchid's facilities in Stamford, Connecticut
and Brussels, Belgium, and the companies anticipate that all of the current
employees of Orchid Diagnostics will be retained by Tepnel.



Application has been made for the admission of the 24,642,576 new Ordinary
Shares to trading on AIM.  The new Ordinary Shares will rank pari passu with the
existing Ordinary Shares of the Company and dealings are expected to commence on
25 November 2003.


                                     -ends-



For Further Information:



Tepnel Life Sciences plc
Ben Matzilevich, CEO
Gron Ffoulkes-Davies, Finance Director
0161 946 2200



De Facto Communications
Richard Anderson/Yvonne Alexander
020 7496 3300


Notes to Editors



About Tepnel Life Sciences PLC

Tepnel Life Sciences is a UK-based international life sciences instrumentation
and services company with a 'tri-polar' strategy focused on providing the
biomedical industry with high-throughput automated DNA purification systems,
manual DNA purification kits and reagents, as well as scientific services for
nucleic acid purification, drug analysis, genotyping and genetically modified
foods. Tepnel Life Sciences was founded in 1992 to exploit DNA technology
generated at UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and
Technology) and is quoted on the AIM segment of the London Stock Exchange (AIM:
TED). More information on Tepnel can be found at www.tepnel.com.



www.tepnel.com






                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END

ACQUSSOROVRAUAA