Cerus Signs INTERCEPT Platelet Agreement With Sweden’s Largest Blood Product Supplier

Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS) announced today that the Karolinska University Hospital (KUH) in Stockholm, has signed a three-year agreement to purchase the INTERCEPT Blood System for platelets. In addition to the three-year base term, the agreement allows for automatic annual extensions for an additional two years. KUH is Sweden’s largest platelet supplier and one of the largest University Hospitals in Europe, producing over 10,000 platelet units, or 20% of Sweden’s platelet supply annually. Including KUH’s utilization of INTERCEPT in routine use, almost half of Sweden’s platelet supply is expected to be treated with the INTERCEPT Blood System for pathogen inactivation.

“INTERCEPT pathogen inactivation enables us to replace bacterial detection, gamma irradiation, and to extend our platelet shelf-life to seven days while providing safe, effective platelet components.” said Dr. Beatrice Diedrich, area manager of clinical immunology and transfusion medicine at KUH. “Furthermore, the use of the INTERCEPT double-dose treatment process is expected to decrease operational expenses substantially, allowing for the production of two therarapeutic doses from a single INTERCEPT Dual Storage platelet kit. Overall, we anticipate that these efficiency improvements will result in a net savings in platelet production and increase platelet availability for our patients.”

“We believe that our extensive hemovigilance data, clinical trial data and the demonstrated routine use of INTERCEPT with kits sold to produce almost 3 million pathogen inactivated products significantly contributed to KUH’s decision to implement INTERCEPT. Our technology’s ability to provide comprehensive, highly effective protection against bacteria and emerging infectious agents,as well as white blood cells associated with graft-versus-host disease, make the INTERCEPT Blood System an ideal alternative to bacterial detection and irradiation,” stated Caspar Hogeboom, president of Cerus Europe and EEMEA. “We are very excited to be supporting Karolinska University Hospital’s mission to provide high quality platelet components to its patients.”

ABOUT CERUS

Cerus Corporation is a biomedical products company focused in the field of blood safety. The INTERCEPT Blood System is designed to reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections by inactivating a broad range of pathogens such as viruses, bacteria and parasites that may be present in donated blood. The nucleic acid targeting mechanism of action of the INTERCEPT treatment is designed to inactivate established transfusion threats, such as hepatitis B and C, HIV, West Nile virus and bacteria, as well as emerging pathogens such as Chikungunya, malaria and dengue. Cerus currently markets and sells the INTERCEPT Blood System for both platelets and plasma in the United States, Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Middle East and selected countries in other regions around the world. The INTERCEPT red blood cell system is in clinical development. See http://www.cerus.com for information about Cerus.

INTERCEPT and the INTERCEPT Blood System are trademarks of Cerus Corporation.

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Any statements contained in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding the expected market share of INTERCEPT treated platelets, the impact of implementing the INTERCEPT Blood System at the Karolinska University Hospital. These forward-looking statements are based upon Cerus’ current expectations. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements as a result of certain factors, including, without limitation, risks associated with the implementation and use of the INTERCEPT Blood System and other risks detailed in Cerus' filings with the SEC, including exhibit 99.1of Cerus' current report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on January 5, 2015. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Cerus does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, changed assumptions or otherwise.