Copenhagen, 2013-04-30 16:30 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 
  -- All proposals from the Board of Directors were adopted 
  -- Following the General Meeting, the Board of Directors constituted itself
     with Daniël J. Ellens as new Chairman and Jørgen Lindegaard as new Vice
     Chairman



Today, Zealand Pharma A/S (NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen: ZEAL) (“Zealand”) held its
Annual General meeting at the company’s address, Smedeland 36, 2600 Glostrup,
Denmark. At the meeting, all proposals from the Board of Directors were
adopted. 



The report by the Board of Directors and Executive Management was adopted and
Zealand’s audited Annual Report for 2012 was approved. 



It was decided that the consolidated profit of DKK 36,372,072.15 for 2012 is
carried forward to the following year. 



All general meeting elected Board members were up for election and all were
re-elected. Hence, the Board of Directors comprises: 



  -- Peter Benson
  -- Daniël J. Ellens
  -- Jørgen Lindegaard
  -- Alain Munoz
  -- Michael J. Owen
  -- Florian Reinaud
  -- Jutta af Rosenborg
  -- Christian Thorkildsen (employee elected)
  -- Helle 
Størum (employee elected)
  -- Hanne Heidenheim Bak (employee elected)





After the Annual General Meeting, the Board of Directors constituted itself
with Daniël J. Ellens as new Chairman and Jørgen Lindegaard as new Vice
Chairman. Jutta af Rosenborg continues as Chairman of the Audit Committee,
while Daniël J. Ellens is new Chairman of the Remuneration and Nomination
Committee. 

PricewaterhouseCoopers Incorporated State Authorized Public Accountants were
re-elected as the Company’s auditor. 



The General Meeting granted the Board of Directors an authorization until the
company’s next Annual General Meeting to acquire the company's own shares for
up to 10 per cent of the company's share capital at any time, provided that the
acquisition, in accordance with the Danish Companies Act section 197, can be
financed by funds that may otherwise be distributed as extraordinary dividends.
The payment may not deviate from the share price at NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen A/S
with more than 10 per cent at the time of purchase. 



The Annual General Meeting approved the remuneration policy proposed by the
Board of Directors. The contents of the remuneration policy are unchanged
compared to last year, however, a few editorial amendments have been made. 



The fee to the Board of Directors for the financial year 2013 was approved.
Consequently, each board member will receive a fixed cash fee of DKK 150,000.
The Chairman will receive DKK 450,000 while the Vice Chairman and the Chairman
of the Audit committee both will receive DKK 300,000. 



The proposal by the Board of Directors to set up a Shareholder Nomination
Committee was also approved. The purpose of this committee is to assess the
composition of the Board of Directors and to present recommendations to the
General Meeting about the election of general meeting elected board members.
Accordingly, it was decided to incorporate a new Article 15 into the Company's
Articles of Association with a wording as proposed in the notice to convene the
General Meeting. 

The General Meeting adopted the Board of Directors' proposed Rules of Procedure
of the Nomination Committee containing rules on the purpose, the composition
and the election of members of the Nomination Committee. Upon establishment of
a Nomination Committee, the Chairman of the Board of Directors will also be
chairman of the Committee in accordance with the Rules of Procedure. The Rules
of Procedure are available on the company's website at www.zealandpharma.com. 


The proposals put forward by shareholders under agenda item 11 were not
approved. 



                                      ***



For further information, please contact:



David Solomon, President and Chief Executive Officer

Tel: +45 22 20 63 00



Hanne Leth Hillman, Vice President, Head of Investor Relations & Corporate
Communication 

Tel: +45 50 60 36 89, email: hlh@zealandpharma.com



About ZealandZealand Pharma A/S (NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen: ZEAL) (“Zealand”) is a
biotechnology company based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Zealand specializes in the
discovery, optimization and development of novel peptide drugs and has a broad
and mature pipeline of drug candidates identified through its own drug
discovery activities. The company’s focus lies in the field of
diabetes/metabolic diseases, and its lead drug invention is lixisenatide, a
once-daily GLP-1 agonist, which is licensed to Sanofi for the treatment of Type
2 diabetes. Lixisenatide is approved in Europe (February 2013) under the name
of Lyxumia®, and under regulatory review in a large number of other countries
globally, including in the US (NDA filed in Dec 2012) and Japan (NDA filed in
June 2013). 



Zealand has a partnering strategy for the development and commercialization of
its products and in addition to the collaboration with Sanofi in Type 2
diabetes, the company has partnerships with Boehringer Ingelheim in
diabetes/obesity, Helsinn Healthcare in chemotherapy induced diarrhea and
AbbVie in acute kidney injury. For further information: www.zealandpharma.com