UPPSALA, Sweden, Nov. 17, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Biacore International AB (SSE: BCOR) is pleased to report further commercial progress with Biacore(R) A100, its most advanced array-based system for protein interaction analysis.
Biacore has today received a further order for Biacore A100 from one of the world's major pharmaceutical companies, based in the U.S. The company intends to utilize the system to enhance its small molecule screening capabilities.
The purchase decision was made after an evaluation of the capabilities of Biacore A100 to monitor the kinetics of small molecules binding to target proteins. This is an important application development as earlier purchasers of Biacore A100 have used the system to focus on protein-protein interactions. Further attributes that led to the purchase decision included the high throughput analysis capacity that allowed Biacore A100 to fit into the process flow of the pharmaceutical company and the ease of data evaluation delivered through the instrument's software. Taken together, the attributes of Biacore A100 enable customers in the pharmaceutical industry to achieve higher productivity in their drug development process.
The order that Biacore has announced today means that sales of this new state of the art system have been achieved in all of the major life science markets namely the U.S., Europe and Japan, and into both industrial and academic customers. In October 2005, Biacore A100 was rolled out to the Company's sales force and it is expected that sales will continue to build at a measured pace as a broader range of customers are given access to the product.
Erik Wallden, Biacore's President and CEO said: ``I am pleased to announce a further order for Biacore A100 from a major U.S. pharmaceutical company. The fact that these customers intend to utilize the system for their work with small molecules drug candidates provides further evidence of the broad range of applications for Biacore A100. Given the reaction that we have received, we are confident that Biacore A100 is a truly enabling tool, which will advance the productivity of pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the discovery and development of new drugs, as well as academic researchers in the elucidation of the proteome. Over time, this system will become a significant contributor to our top-line growth."
About Biacore A100
Biacore A100 has been designed and developed for use in a broad range of applications in proteomics, early kinetic screening of antibody therapeutics and in many areas within drug discovery including hit validation, compound library screening particularly from virtual screens and fragment libraries, lead optimization and also in pre-clinical studies.
Biacore A100 rapidly monitors protein interactions (thousands of interactions per day) to generate high quality kinetic, affinity and selectivity of binding information.
Biacore A100 enables multiplex kinetic screening of protein panels providing unique selectivity information. The parallel real-time analysis of protein interactions combines increased throughput with the sensitivity needed to handle small molecule analysis. The array technology brings a new dimension to the study of protein interactions by using parallel analysis to generate crucial information on the behavior and interactions of a wide range of proteins grouped into panels or other configurations. The system also includes new software tools that have been optimized for array applications and are designed to handle large data volumes.
About Biacore
Biacore is a global supplier of analytical systems that improve the productivity of research and development in the life science and pharmaceutical markets. The company's instruments generate unique data on protein interactions, an area of increasing focus in these markets. The data give insights into protein functionality, the role of proteins in normal and diseased states, and the influence of potential drug candidates. Use of Biacore products is well documented in key areas such as antibody characterization, proteomics, lead optimization and bio-therapeutic development and production. Customers include world-renowned life science research centers, all of the leading global pharmaceutical companies and a large number of companies in the emerging biotechnology sector. Biacore is successfully expanding into the food analysis market, providing key manufacturers with ready-to-use solutions for the determination of food quality and safety. The company offers a range of products to meet specific customer needs. All instruments utilize Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) technology as the basis for detection and monitoring of protein interactions. Biacore has its own direct sales capability in the world's key markets, United States, Europe, Japan, Australia and a distribution network in Asia-Pacific. The company was created in 1984, is based in Uppsala, Sweden, and is listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange www.stockholmsborsen.se (SSE:BCOR). Further information on Biacore can be found on the web: www.biacore.com
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