Procognia and Xcellerex Sign High Speed Glycoanalysis Agreement

September 29^th, 2003, Maidenhead UK and Marlborough, MA, US – Procognia Ltd and Xcellerex LLC announced an agreement to provide Procognia’s rapid glycoanalysis to Xcellerex customers. Xcellerex is the leader in the application of advanced biomanufacturing technologies in the biologics contract manufacturing industry. Procognia has developed technology that enables the rapid assessment of product structure and comparability using rapid analysis of the glycosylation of intact glycoprotein samples directly in culture medium. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Procognia’s U-c fingerprint technology provides a quantitative analysis of the glycans in a protein sample without protein purification or cleavage. Up to 40 protein samples can be analyzed in under 6 hours with minimal ‘hands-on’ time. As current tools for analyzing glycosylation are not amenable to real-time analysis and monitoring, the speed and ease of use of Procognia’s technology enables rapid development of biotherapeutics.

Xcellerex is dedicated to speeding medicines to people and offers contract high speed and high output process development and manufacturing technologies for biotherapeutics, vaccines and personalized medicines.  Integration of Procognia U-c fingerprint technology into Xcellerex’s services will permit Xcellerex to rapidly identify and retain the desired glycosylation patterns of products as they undergo process optimization, scale up for manufacturing and clinical development.

Parrish Galliher, President and CEO of Xcellerex, commented “I am very pleased to offer this critical service to our clients. Procognia’s technology will further improve the speed and success with which we can advance our clients’ products to the clinic and the market.” Ron Long, CEO of Procognia indicated “We feel that our relationship with an innovative biologics process development and manufacturing organization such as Xcellerex is an important step in improving the quality of biologic products available to patients.”

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Additional Information:

To speed medicines to people, Xcellerex uses advanced technology including both automated high speed process development systems and fast, flexible manufacturing systems. Using this platform, the Xcellerex Team can bring a product from gene to patient in well under one year. The company has 15 employees at its 45,000 sq. ft. GMP and process development facility located in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

Procognia has developed integrated, rapid glycoanalysis technologies to increase the probability of success of biopharmaceutical products. Procognia technology can provide more data in hours than combinations of conventional methods require days to produce. The company has 75 employees. It has Corporate headquarters and manufacturing in Maidenhead, United Kingdom,  Commercial operations and customer support in Maidenhead, United Kingdom and Philadelphia, PA, United States and R&D in Ashdod, Israel and Maidenhead, United Kingdom.

Further information at: www.procognia.com  and  www.xcellerex.com

For further information please contact:

Procognia Ltd, Johanna Griffin, CCO, + 1 (0)610 321 2520

Northbank Communications Ltd, Sue Charles, CEO, +44 (0)20 7886 8152