IDBS to Supply Chemical Intelligence for Agilent Technologies' Synapsia Informatics Workbench 
GUILDFORD, U.K., and PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 2 -- IDBS, a leading supplier of data management software for the life sciences, and Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced a license agreement. The collaboration allows Agilent to use IDBS' ChemIQ(tm) and ChemXtra(tm) technologies to provide chemical intelligence for Agilent Synapsia Informatics Workbench, a suite of software tools designed to help scientists synthesize and share research.

The integration of ChemIQ and ChemXtra into Synapsia enables it to bridge the data domains of biology and chemistry, facilitating a more efficient, multi-disciplinary approach to drug discovery and development. 

The IDBS ChemXtra data cartridge gives Synapsia advanced chemical searching and indexing capabilities. The IDBS ChemIQ cheminformatics software development kit enables Synapsia users to collect, display and manipulate structural information.

With ChemIQ and ChemXtra, scientists can now store and query compound information in Synapsia projects. The compound data can be imported into Synapsia from other chemical databases or from mol files and SD files. The chemical information can be searched by structure and can be associated with various "omics" data and relevant information in a project-focused approach, helping researchers connect disparate data, annotate information and share findings with colleagues.

"Synapsia is a unique application for the generation of knowledge from information and data," said Neil Kipling, chairman and CEO of IDBS. "We are very pleased to license ChemXtra and ChemIQ to Agilent, providing the cheminformatics power behind Synapsia." 

"The IDBS technologies provide the chemical intelligence our customers need in an intuitive and rapidly implemented system," said François Mandeville, business manager for Agilent's Informatics Solutions Business. "This collaboration helps Synapsia users bring together chemical and biological data in the context of projects and will significantly improve how researchers work."

Agilent Synapsia is a portfolio of software products for optimizing the drug discovery and development process. It enables the building of a context layer that associates heterogeneous data from abundant information sources in each project. Synapsia allows scientists to take a project-oriented approach to data analysis and review, which improves decision quality and integrity, and facilitates the development of intellectual property. 

More information on Agilent's Synapsia Informatics Workbench and other informatics solutions is available at www.agilent.com/chem/informatics .

About Agilent Technologies
Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) is a global technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis. The company's 29,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenue of $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2003. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at www.agilent.com.

About IDBS
IDBS works with the majority of the world's leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to help maximise the value of research data - providing both development technologies and out-of-the-box software applications. IDBS chemical technologies, ChemXtra and ChemIQ, underpin IDBS' drug discovery data management applications such as ActivityBase, and are sold under license for the development of custom applications. ActivityBase is the industry standard data management software for drug discovery, enabling users to capture, manage and use biological and chemical information in an integrated framework. Headquartered in Guildford, United Kingdom, IDBS has offices in Emeryville, California; Parsippany, New Jersey; and, Cambridge, Massachusetts. IDBS partners with CTC Laboratory Systems in Japan to market IDBS products and services. Founded in 1989, IDBS employs over 150 people worldwide. For more information, visit: www.id-bs.com.

CONTACTS:

Beth Thomas, IDBS
+44 1483 595 010
bthomas@id-bs.com 

Christina Maehr, Agilent
+1 408 553 7205
christina_maehr@agilent.com