Basel, 2002/10/08

Genedata AG, a global leader in developing and marketing computational data analysis systems for high-throughput drug discovery, and the pharmaceutical group Altana Pharma AG announce the successful completion of the first year of their collaboration in High-Throughput Screening (HTS) data analysis. The goals of the three-year collaboration are to develop computer-based methods for comprehensive analysis of biological HTS data and to implement these methods into the Genedata ScreenerTM software system. This system serves Altana Pharma in early detection of high-quality hits in drug screening and generally improves the overall screening process, thus reducing development costs.

Following initiation of the collaboration in July 2001, both companies are fully satisfied with the results and progress after the first year and report that they are ahead of the schedule to achieve the collaboration goals. As a development partner, Altana Pharma AG received in May 2002 the complete pre-release version of the Screener system consisting of Screener AssayAnalyzer (for quality assessment), Screener Condenser (for data standardization), and Screener Analyst (for compound profiling using multivariate statistical analysis methods). The Screener AssayAnalyzer module, officially released in May as version 1.0, is already in use at Altana Pharma, helping to ensure HTS data quality as well as improve the accuracy of the screening process.

"Having Altana Pharma as our first development partner for HTS data analysis has been of great value to us and we are excited about the collaboration and the results we have accomplished in the first year. Our work with Altana Pharma has paved the way for a comprehensive HTS system that will prove to be of value for the entire life science industry," said Othmar Pfannes, Ph.D., Genedata's CEO.

"We are impressed with the partnership and scientific solutions developed in collaboration with Genedata. The collaboration is very open and constructive and the people involved are highly competent. The methods developed by Genedata such as quality control and biological activity profiling as well as the future possibility to combine it with chemical data (SAR-analysis) is unique. Our team has validated that the methods fit to our process and lead to the expected results. With Genedata we can truly realize our vision to turn data into knowledge and extend the HTS process towards High Output Screening. We look forward to further intensifying our collaboration," said Werner Stürmer, Ph.D., Head of HTS at Altana Pharma AG.