George,
Will look at ILMN as acomp in a few days, sorry to be tardy . . .
>>CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct 24, 2001 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: MLNM chart, msgs) and Affymetrix, Inc. (Nasdaq: AFFX chart, msgs) today announced a four-year R&D agreement and volume discount supply agreement to co-develop a new generation of GeneChip(R) technology applications for use in drug discovery and development. Under this arrangement, Millennium and Affymetrix will jointly develop gene expression array processes and applications to enhance the productivity of genomics-based drug discovery and development. Over the next year, Millennium will transition its microarray use to Affymetrix' GeneChip technology, and Affymetrix will provide Millennium with preferred access and pricing to its gene expression platform in recognition of a volume commitment to GeneChip technology. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
(Logo:http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19991220/MLNMLOGO )
The agreement leverages Millennium's strengths in process development and integration and Affymetrix' leading-edge GeneChip platform. The companies will co-develop new processes and high throughput applications that are designed to address critical bottlenecks in the current drug discovery process and account for a significant proportion of pharmaceutical R&D spending.
"This partnership with Affymetrix exemplifies Millennium's strategy of pursuing innovative collaborations that take advantage of high-quality capabilities of partner companies, in order to allow Millennium to focus our efforts and resources downstream to directly impact our product pipeline," said Allan Marchington, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Productivity. "Working with Affymetrix, the leader in DNA array technology, will contribute to major productivity improvements and enable us to operate cost-effectively as we commercialize products."
"Millennium has an impressive record for leveraging cutting-edge technology to enhance the drug discovery and development process," said Robert Lipshutz, Ph.D., Vice President of Corporate Development and Licensing at Affymetrix. "Through this collaboration we will accelerate the evolution and use of our technology in drug development and health care. We plan to capture improvements to enhance our commercial offering."
Affymetrix' DNA arrays enable scientists worldwide to simultaneously monitor the expression of tens of thousands of genes in a single experiment, providing a detailed conceptual view of the cellular circuitry by expression monitoring at the level of the whole genome. The power of this technology is in its scope: scientists can investigate differences between normal and malignant tissue, identify novel drug targets and genetic markers, elucidate specific genetic pathways regulated by a given drug and determine the functions of novel genes. At Millennium, these high-throughput techniques have been centralized into a core facility, to exploit economy of scale and emphasize rapid, high-quality, high-volume production. Millennium is committed to achieving major improvements in the productivity of drug discovery and development by building and applying the industry's leading technology platform spanning all stages of the gene-to-patient continuum.
The companies will commit a research team to jointly develop sample preparation solutions and automation of array processing and sample and probe array barcoding and tracking systems. The commercialization of these systems is expected to increase the performance and ease-of-use of the GeneChip technology by offering automated solutions for the handling, separation and purification of samples prior to their analysis on GeneChip arrays. Affymetrix will supply and develop its vast array technology expertise, instrumentation, GeneChip arrays, consumables and software. Millennium will contribute its extensive process development and informatics expertise and will benefit from early access to the technology, leading to an anticipated positive effect on productivity in Millennium's drug discovery programs. Affymetrix will receive commercialization rights to chip process and application improvements developed through the collaboration in exchange for technology development fees and royalties to Millennium. Millennium will have the right to use jointly-developed technology as part of its integrated gene-to-patient platform and in its relationships with other companies.<<
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Cheers, Tuck |
