Forbes Purchases Manufacturing Facility

Business Wire, Dec 17, 1998

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 17, 1998-- (VSE:FMI.) Forbes Medi-Tech Inc. (VSE: FMI) ("Forbes" or the "Company") today reported that it has purchased a manufacturing facility in Amqui, Quebec from Bayer, an international chemicals and healthcare group. Bayer had used this plant for manufacturing, storage and distribution of natural flavor ingredients. Forbes is preparing this pilot facility for use in the upscaling and production of plant sterol compounds such as its cholesterol-lowering functional food ingredient, Phytrol(TM).

"The Amqui plant is a very timely acquisition for the Company," said Jack Miller, Senior Vice-President of Forbes. "It is a modern plant expected to require minimal modifications and enables us to quickly add production capacity in order to satisfy our commitments for a product launch in 1999."

Forbes also announces the appointment of Christiane Afif, Eng., as Director, Facilities Development. A graduate of Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique in Chemical Engineering, Afif has held engineering management positions with both Handy Chemicals and St. Jean-Photochemicals. Her experience in plant design, fast-track construction management, process scale-up and optimization will be a key asset to Forbes as she leads a team to upscale Forbes tall oil extraction process.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF FORBES MEDI-TECH INC. Tazdin Esmail, President and Chief Executive Officer

FORBES MEDI-TECH is a Vancouver-based biotechnology company dedicated to research, development and commercialization of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products derived from forest industry by-products. By extracting plant sterols from tall oil soap, a pulping by-product, Forbes is developing cholesterol-lowering agents as pharmaceutical therapeutics and functional food ingredients, in the battle against heart disease. Forbes is also developing innovative fermentation technology that converts plant sterols into pharmaceutical fine chemicals, essential in the manufacturing of various pharmaceutical steroids. Using the base products of these technologies, Forbes is further developing methods for the production of "higher value" steroids such as sex hormones and birth control agents.

The statements made in this News Release may contain certain forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ from the Company's expectations. Certain risk factors may also affect the actual results achieved by the Company. Exemption from registration pursuant to Rule 12(g)3-2(b) 82-3139.

The Vancouver Stock Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this News Release.