Release issued 24th January 2002

PATTERSON, NY, AND ANDERNACH, GERMANY, JANUARY 24, 2002 - Penwest Pharmaceuticals Co. (NASDAQ: PPCO), a leader in innovative drug delivery technologies, and Finzelberg GmbH & Co. KG, a member of The Martin Bauer Group and a manufacturer of herbal extracts for the nutritional industry, today announced that they have agreed to jointly develop and market a new line of herbal supplement formulations utilizing Penwest's PROSOLV® technology. The new line will be marketed to nutritional companies under the brand name RediRun DC(tm).

This collaboration will combine Penwest's expertise in oral drug delivery and Finzelberg's experience in producing herbal extracts to overcome typical challenges of manufacturing nutritional products. Nutritional actives often absorb moisture, flow poorly and are not compactable, resulting in bulky tablets or capsule formulations. Applying PROSOLV during the herbal extraction process solves these problems at the source and reduces the need for additional excipients and manufacturing processes. As a result, the RediRun DC(tm) formulations produce significantly smaller, lower cost tablets and improve patient compliance.

Stephen J. Berté, Jr., Senior Vice President and General Manager of Penwest, said, "We anticipate wide acceptance of the RediRun formulations, which can be extended to all herbal supplements. Independent research has demonstrated that nutritional manufacturers and consumers desire smaller, less expensive tablets and once-a-day dosing. RediRun effectively meets these needs of the nutritional market and we believe that this technology can also be successfully applied to pharmaceutical formulations.

"This alliance with Finzelberg also expands Penwest's participation in PROSOLV drug development programs by patenting and co-marketing our formulated products. We are therefore applying the successful strategy from our TIMERx® joint development alliances to PROSOLV herbal formulations and will share the development and associated costs and profits with Finzelberg."

Franz Meister, Chief Executive Officer of Finzelberg said, "The patented application of the PROSOLV technology delivers an exciting new product line to the nutritional industry, providing nutritional marketers with key advantages - a clearly differentiated product and early market entry by enabling immediate tablet production and eliminating bulky excipients, expensive processing and long formulation time."

Allan Himmelstein, President of The Martin Bauer Group added, "Our collaboration with Penwest has already formulated Ginseng and St. John's Wort products, which are two- to five-times smaller than traditional herbal supplements and we expect to introduce additional products within the year."

About Penwest

Penwest is engaged in the research, development and commercialization of novel drug delivery technologies. Based on its experience in developing and manufacturing ingredients for orally administered pharmaceutical products, Penwest has developed its proprietary TIMERx® controlled release delivery and PROSOLV ® High Functionality Excipient technologies, which can be applied to a broad range of drugs.

About Finzelberg

Finzelberg GmbH, located in Andernach, Germany, produces herbal extracts for the pharmaceutical and dietary supplement industries. It is part of the Plantextrakt Holding GmbH & Co. in Vestenbergsreuth, Germany and is represented in the U.S. by The Martin Bauer Group of Parsippany, NJ.

Drawing on over 150 plant species, Finzelberg produces more than 1,000 different extracts. Its product range encompasses powdered and soft extracts including compacted granules for tablets and capsules.

Finzelberg follows the most stringent international quality standards from the preparation of raw materials through extraction and drying. The company uses digitally guided high tech facilities and equipment that adhere to DIN ISO 9001 regulations as well as GMP standards, also carefully protecting the biologically active plant constituents.

Raw materials are sourced from every climatic zone in the world and stored in extensive warehouse facilities to insure a steady supply.

Finzelberg has a history of over 125 years in the manufacture of healthful extracts.

The matters discussed herein contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause Penwest's actual results in future periods to be materially different from any future performance suggested herein. For this purpose, any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the foregoing, the words, "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "intends," " potential," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include the need for the Company to raise capital in order to fund increasing R&D spending and the risk that Penwest will not be able to raise such funds or will only be able to raise such funds on unfavorable terms; dependence on collaborators to, among other things, sell products for which the Company receives royalties and advance clinical development and commercialization of products; the ability to enter into additional collaborations; uncertainty of success of collaborations; the risk of patent litigation; regulatory risks relating to TIMERx® drugs in development; the timing of clinical trials; actual and potential competition; the timing and outcome of regulatory approval of products and other risks as set forth under the caption "Risk Factors" in Penwest's Current Report on Form 8-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 25, 2001, and which risk factors are incorporated herein by reference.

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