Thermo Fisher Scientific Named a Microsoft Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Innovation Award Winner for Informatics Solutions

Thermo Scientific Nautilus LIMS™ Recognized for Driving Better Business Decisions at AstraZeneca

PHILADELPHIA — (July 8, 2008) — Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, today announced that it is the winner of a Microsoft Corporation 2008 Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Innovation Award in the Discovery and Product Innovation category. The award honors best-in-class companies that have made the most innovative use of Microsoft-based solutions for breakthroughs in business processes and practices throughout the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry. Together with AstraZeneca, Thermo Fisher Scientific is pleased to be acknowledged for their contributions to advancing science.

The award, announced at the Drug Information Association’s (DIA’s) 44th annual conference, was presented to Thermo Fisher Scientific and AstraZeneca, and it recognizes the companies as examples of true innovators in their approaches to solving some of the major challenges facing the global life sciences industry. “Whether it is the challenging regulatory environment, dispersed silos of information or changing dynamics within an organization, life sciences companies today face enormous challenges,” said Michael Naimoli, U.S. life sciences industry solutions director, Microsoft Corp. “Thermo Fisher Scientific and AstraZeneca are recognized at this year’s award ceremony for exemplifying how technology built on the Microsoft software platform can help address these issues by empowering people to better connect, collaborate and make informed decisions to drive business success.”

Building on the Microsoft software platform, the Thermo Fisher and AstraZeneca application demonstrated a compelling solution that streamlined the early phase discovery process and greatly accelerated decision-making in discovery and drug delivery. AstraZeneca is a major international healthcare business engaged in research, development, manufacturing and marketing of prescription pharmaceuticals and supplier for healthcare services. With more than 13,000 R&D employees spanning eight countries, centralizing biochemical screening operations across its global R&D centers creates a host of challenges. Typically managed at the local laboratory level, the effort to harmonize disparate processes to record, track and manage a growing number of requests for compound screening was identified as a major hindrance to productivity.

AstraZeneca implemented Thermo Scientific Nautilus LIMS™ (Laboratory Information Management System) to centralize biochemical screening, map laboratory workflows, and dramatically drive efficiency through superior data management. Built on Microsoft’s Visual Studio .NET, Thermo Scientific Nautilus LIMS helped coordinate global requests, automate workflows and standardize biochemical screening. Within six months of the deployment, AstraZeneca realized a 180 percent efficiency gain across its laboratories from the centralized screening process. “Thermo Scientific Nautilus LIMS allows us to turn our data around faster and test across multiple targets, so chemists can get an answer more quickly. This ‘Centralized Screening’ approach helps to prevent the progression of inappropriate chemical series, while identifying unexpected leads, ultimately accelerating the research on promising compounds. This process has the additional cost-saving benefit of chemistry and bioscience resources that would have been expended on a failed result,” says Roger Clark, senior scientist in the Cancer & Infection department at AstraZeneca. “The Biochemical Screening team at AstraZeneca has truly ‘raised the bar’ within early drug discovery, and Nautilus, along with the Microsoft .Net platform, is fundamental to this activity.”

Thermo Fisher’s vision for enabling knowledge-driven discoveries utilizes the company’s market-leading technology to help life sciences organizations integrate their systems, dramatically enhance collaboration and increase information sharing and learning. Ultimately, this results in the ability to deliver high-quality products and services across the world. “Thermo Scientific Nautilus LIMS is a Microsoft-based, flexible and easy-to-use solution that helps organizations drive efficiencies, connect better with customers and make more informed decisions faster,” says Dave Champagne, vice president and general manager, Informatics at Thermo Fisher Scientific. “We are very pleased to have received this honor and recognition with AstraZeneca in the pursuit of excellence in discovery and product innovation from Microsoft.”

For more information about Thermo Scientific informatics solutions, please call +1 866-463-6522, e-mail marketing.informatics@thermofisher.com  or visit www.thermo.com/informatics .

Award participants consisted of worldwide life sciences corporations in biotechnology, diagnostics, medical equipment and devices, pharmaceuticals, animal health, nutritional products and consumer health products. Winners were selected by an esteemed panel of industry experts and will be highlighted on the Microsoft Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/lifesciences .

About Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO) is the world leader in serving science, enabling our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. With annual revenues of $10 billion, we have more than 30,000 employees and serve over 350,000 customers within pharmaceutical and biotech companies, hospitals and clinical diagnostic labs, universities, research institutions and government agencies, as well as environmental and industrial process control settings. Serving customers through two premier brands, Thermo Scientific and Fisher Scientific, we help solve analytical challenges from routine testing to complex research and discovery. Thermo Scientific offers customers a complete range of high-end analytical instruments as well as laboratory equipment, software, services, consumables and reagents to enable integrated laboratory workflow solutions. Fisher Scientific provides a complete portfolio of laboratory equipment, chemicals, supplies and services used in healthcare, scientific research, safety and education. Together, we offer the most convenient purchasing options to customers and continuously advance our technologies to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, enhance value for customers and fuel growth for shareholders and employees alike. Visit www.thermofisher.com .

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