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Biotech / Medical : Trickle Portfolio -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tuck who wrote (1410)	4/7/2003 9:46:33 AM
From: tuck	Respond to of 1784

Many moons ago, Rick mentioned upcoming competition for BCOR: >>FOSTER CITY, Calif., HOPKINTON, Mass., and CHIYODA-KU, TOKYO, Japan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 7, 2003--Applied Biosystems (NYSE:ABI - News), an Applera Corporation business, HTS Biosystems, Inc., and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC) today announced a distribution agreement in which Applied Biosystems Japan, Ltd. (ABJ), a division of Applied Biosystems, will be the exclusive distributor of a next-generation surface plasmon resonance (SPR) system that is designed to help researchers profile and characterize biomolecular interactions. In addition, the three companies are expected to collaborate to further develop applications to expand the capabilities of the system. Applied Biosystems plans for worldwide commercial release of the system by the middle of calendar 2003. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. In April 2002, Applied Biosystems and HTS Biosystems entered into a licensing and supply agreement to develop and commercialize the SPR technology that permits high-throughput analysis of protein interactions in a more cost-effective and streamlined manner than existing technologies. Prior to the agreement, HTS Biosystems granted MCC rights to distribute the system once commercialized in Japan. Since that time, HTS has performed extensive development to improve the capabilities and applications for the system. HTS Biosystems and MCC have chosen ABJ as its exclusive distributor based on ABJ's broad distribution, sales and support network in the region and to allow MCC to focus its efforts on development of applications for both the Japan and worldwide markets. ABJ is expected to leverage the development, and global sales and marketing efforts of Applied Biosystems to support the SPR platform. "Advancements in technology are providing new opportunities to understand complex systems and networks responsible for important biological functions," said Michael W. Hunkapiller, Ph.D., President of Applied Biosystems. "We believe this technology could be an important new tool for researchers who are seeking a better understanding of the role of proteins in disease detection and drug development." "The opportunity to be involved with these world leaders and to have access to the tremendous capabilities of Applied Biosystems and MCC is a testament to the value of our SPR technology and HTS team," said Gregory G. Freitag, Chief Executive Officer of HTS Biosystems. "The development of future products by MCC, Applied Biosystems and HTS combined with Applied Biosystems worldwide marketing and distribution should help to quickly establish the market for advanced, high-throughput SPR detection." "We believe the SPR technology will be very useful and contribute to the research and technology development for therapeutic discovery in Japan," said Kohei Umedu, Ph.D., Executive Officer, Director of Health Care Planning of Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation. "We expect ABJ's marketing and sales activities to be successful. In addition, we look forward to the collaboration between Applied Biosystems, HTS and MCC to further develop applications and expand the global market for the system." << snip Cheers, Tuck