Basel, 2000/08/08

Genedata AG (Switzerland) has entered into a licensing agreement with Zeneca Agrochemicals (UK) to use Expressionist, a software system for the analysis of data from gene expression arrays, in its genomics research. Expressionist will be employed to support the development of crop protection products for the control of the principal weeds, pests and diseases affecting major crops. Genedata will also modify and further enhance the software to meet the specific needs of Zeneca.

Dr. Ian Jepson, Head of BioSciences at Zeneca said: "Our collaboration with Genedata will allow us to apply large-scale gene expression profiling to accelerate the identification of both potential targets of novel pesticides, and new genes of value to global crop production and the provision of healthy food. Expressionist enables us to handle and analyse efficiently substantial amount of experimental data, and forms a key element of our genomics strategy."

Genedata's CEO, Dr. Othmar Pfannes, adds: "Our close partnership with Zeneca allows us to stay at the cutting edge of scientific research in the agrobiological field. A prerequisite for our strategy of providing tailored bioinformatics solutions for a wide-range of industrial research applications is keeping track of the breath-taking advances in genomics and proteomics research."

Expressionist is an enterprise-wide computational system for the analysis of gene activity. Expressionist is part of Genedata's bioinformatics platform which also comprises Phylosopher, a computational system for the identification of gene function based on large scale genome comparison, and Impressionist for the large-scale analysis of proteomics data.