Two-loop virtual corrections to b-> sl^+l^- in the standard model

We present the results of the O(alpha_s) two-loop virtual corrections to the differential decay width dGamma(B -> X_s l+ l-)/ds, where s is the invariant mass squared of the lepton pair. Those contributions from gluon bremsstrahlung which are needed to cancel infrared and collinear singularities are also included. Our calculation is restricted to the range 0.05 < s/mb^2 < 0.25 where the effects from resonances are small. The new contributions drastically reduce the renormalization scale dependence of existing results for dGamma(B->X_s l+ l-)/ds. The renormalization scale uncertainty of the corresponding branching ratio (restricted to range mentioned above) gets reduced from +/-13% to +/-6.5%.