Frankfurt/Main – IonGate Biosciences GmbH is pleased to announce the market launch of the innovative SURFE2R Workstation 5000. This fully integrated screening center is the new flagship model of IonGate’s SURFE2R product family, paving new ways in industrial automation of transporter screening for the pharmaceutical industry.

With SURFE2R Workstation 5000, IonGate presents the latest automated system for direct functional measurement of the important new target class of transport pro­teins. Based on SURFE2R Technology (SURFace Electrogenic Event Reader), the activity of transporters is detected through high-quality reproducible electric measurements. The next-generation model SURFE2R Workstation 5000 allows a 10-fold increase in throughput. Thus, as many as 10,000 measurements can be carried out per day. In contrast to the previous model, SURFE2R Workstation 500, the new SURFE2R Workstation 5000 integrates liquid handling units, the detection modules and a computer, as well as system liquid and waste management units, with the necessary periphery in one efficient and space-saving housing. The con­nectivity to other lab automation equipment will be provided in a future enhance­ment.

The SURFE2R Workstation 5000 was specially developed for high-throughput capa­bilities required for pharmaceutical drug screening, enabling efficient transporter-based research with applications like screening, hit confirmation, hit-to-lead process, compound profiling and substrate identification.

IonGate will introduce SURFE2R Workstation 5000 internationally at this years’ Drug Discovery & Development of Innovative Therapeutics (DDT) from 4-7 August 2008, in Boston, USA and will showcas its’ efficiency with a demonstration model at booth no. 513. Furthermore, Dr. Henning Vollert will explain advantages and applications of SURFE2R Technology for efficient pharmaceutical drug discovery in his presen­tation “Cell-free Electrophysiology is Enabling an Efficient Drug Discovery for Ion-Transporters” on August 5. Dr. Vollert, a researcher at the University of Kiel, inves­tigates pharmaceutically important transport proteins and their response to specific inhibitors.

About IonGate Biosciences GmbH

IonGate Biosciences develops, produces and markets innovative screening technologies to investigate transporters and is the worldwide leader in this new area.

Transporters are essential for the metabolic functions of the cell, information processing in the entire organism, and play a fundamental role in the health of humans. Due to their difficult experimental accessibility, transporters are underrepresented in current drug screening processes. Now, IonGate’s original product, SURFE2R One, is joined by the SURFE2R Workstation 500 to provide highly precise functional screening of transporters in the higher-throughput pharmaceutical discovery and development environments. IonGate provides total system solutions, encompassing disposables and reagents, consulting services which include the design of assays and customized applications, and contract laboratory services.

IonGate Biosciences GmbH is a venture capital financed biotechnology company located in Frankfurt/Main, Germany and Portland, Maine, USA. In addition to the main financier and leading partner Heidelberg Innovation, the KfW holds a stake in IonGate. The company was established in 2000 and currently employs more than 30 staff.