LION bioscience AG and GeneProt Team Up for Better Proteomics Integration
HEIDELBERG, Germany, CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & NORTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. --(BW HealthWire)--March 14, 2002--
Combination of Leading Integration Platform and Industrial Scale Proteomics Capabilities Delivers Increased Offerings to Life Sciences Companies
LION bioscience AG, a leading provider of integrated IT solutions for the life sciences sector, and GeneProt, Inc., a leader in the industrial-scale discovery, identification and synthesis of naturally occurring proteins, today announced that they have entered into a three-year strategic and marketing collaboration. The two companies will jointly market an integrated offering that combines their core competencies to accelerate the drug discovery and development process.
Under the terms of the agreements, GeneProt will license LION's integration platform consisting of SRS and DiscoveryCenter(TM) software and selected LION scientific applications (piSCOUT(TM), pathSCOUT(TM)) and will purchase related services from LION for up to $4.95 million. Together with LION, GeneProt will use these modules and services to enhance its internal information management platform. GeneProt will furthermore make its own data and offering, together with the LION information platform available to their joint customers at LION's discretion, allowing them to benefit from this unique combination of content and information management for their own research and development process.
In return, LION will enhance its integration platform by adding GeneProt's cutting edge proteomics functionality, as it has already done with other providers of leading functionality required for the drug discovery process. The two companies will also co-market their joint solutions in the proteomics area enabling their customers to speed up their discovery process by integrating their data across different disciplines and analyzing them using industry-leading systems.
LION will make a strategic equity investment in GeneProt valued at approximately $7.5 million. In return LION will receive 681,818 shares of Series B Preferred Stock of GeneProt for this investment. In accordance with LION's corporate policy, LION will make equity investments in business partners that add strategically valuable expertise to LION's integrated IT solutions accompanying the entire R&D chain and that offer significant upside potential for the future.
``Collaborating with GeneProt enables us to enhance our interdisciplinary IT solutions for the life sciences by including proteomics data and functionality from one of the strongest companies in the field. Because the interest in proteomics for modern research is growing rapidly, this alliance will be of high interest and value for the life science industry,'' said LION Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Friedrich von Bohlen. ``It is important to build and offer an expert information management solution to our clients and partners that includes and links to the leading products along the entire research and development value chain, enabling them to improve their data and information integration and management over the entire R&D process. The alliance with GeneProt enhances our offering as leading integration partner for the industry.''
``The partnership between LION and GeneProt yields the critical linkage between genomics and proteomics for life sciences companies, enabling them to consolidate intellectual property across multiple disciplines on a global scale and analyze and apply it directly to the discovery of new, high-potential therapeutic proteins, protein drug targets and protein biomarkers,'' said Cedric Loiret-Bernal, M.D., GeneProt's Chief Executive Officer. ``Our expanded offering of products and services allows us to deliver even greater value to our customers through further optimization of their resources and our own,'' he continued.
The strategic collaboration responds to the increasing need of integrating, managing and understanding the many and diverse new data and information provided by proteomics, the identification and characterization of proteins in specific tissues and fluids. Following the deciphering of the human genome, proteomics is expected to be the next focus of intense interest as scientists drill deeper into the understanding of the causes and development process of diseases. Life sciences companies have an increasing need for integrated IT-solutions that connect both, data and standard application modules via a comprehensive integration platform that supports an interdisciplinary discovery process in order to identify and validate more successful candidates earlier in the drug discovery process. Such a platform further has to support the decision process throughout the various stages of biological, chemical, and pre-clinical analysis.
About LION bioscience AG (Neuer Markt: LIO, WKN 504 350, Nasdaq: LEON)
LION bioscience (http://www.lionbioscience.com) provides proven information and knowledge management solutions to significantly improve life science R&D performance and productivity. These solutions integrate all R&D disciplines, spanning from genomics to early and late discovery through clinical trials. LION applies these solutions for its internal drug discovery program in the field of nuclear receptors with the goal to improve the overall productivity of the drug discovery process, outlicense validated target-lead combinations and partner with pharmaceutical companies on an IT-enhanced technology platform.
Founded in 1997, LION has more than 500 employees, with headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany, and subsidiaries in Cambridge, UK, Cambridge, MA, Cleveland, OH, Columbus, OH, and San Diego, CA, USA. To date, LION has established partnerships with leading life science companies, including Aventis, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Celera, DuPont, GlaxoSmithKline, IBM, Janssen, Merck Inc., Nestle, Novartis, Paradigm Genetics, Pharmacia & Upjohn, Roche, Schering AG and Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals.
About GeneProt Inc.
GeneProt, Inc. is a global industrial-scale proteomics company that identifies, characterizes, and synthesizes select human proteins and delivers them in powder form to pharmaceutical companies and other partners for use in the discovery and development of new therapeutic proteins, protein drug targets and protein biomarkers. GeneProt integrates multidisciplinary, collaborative teams of leading experts in proteomics and bioinformatics with the vision, insight and ability to bring new efficiencies to the development and enhanced quality of tomorrow's human therapies.
GeneProt's partners include leading pharmaceutical and technology companies and academic and scientific institutions such as Novartis, Compaq, Bruker Daltonics, Waters Corporation, Zymark and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. The company will pursue additional partnerships with organizations that can derive value from or bring value to GeneProt's unique offerings in proteomics discovery and production. Pharmaceutical partnerships represent potential significant revenue sources for both the short and the long term.
With headquarters in North Brunswick, New Jersey, GeneProt opened the world's first fully operational, industrial-scale proteomics discovery and production facility in Geneva, Switzerland, in April 2001. The facility houses what is believed to be the world's largest life sciences supercomputer. It is also equipped with state-of-the-art mass spectrometers and some of the most advanced bioinformatic and computing data-storage technologies and uses leading genetic and protein databases. GeneProt's capacity will double when the second such facility opens at its headquarters site. For more information, please visit www.geneprot.com. |
