Roche NimbleGen and BioDiscovery Form Strategic Alliance to Enhance CGH Microarrays, Software and Services

Roche NimbleGen Inc., a company of Roche Applied Science, announced today that it has formed a strategic alliance with BioDiscovery, Inc. to offer complete solutions to comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) microarray customers. The new high-density 2.1 million probe (HD2) arrays of Roche NimbleGen combined with industry-leading proprietary software, Nexus Copy Number, of BioDiscovery bring unprecedented power and ease in whole-genome CGH analysis. As part of this alliance Roche NimbleGen and BioDiscovery will co-market and co-promote their products and services to scientists worldwide. The companies also plan to present data generated from NimbleGen CGH arrays using Nexus software of BioDiscovery to the research community through a series of seminars. “This alliance with BioDiscovery will enable Roche NimbleGen to significantly enhance the customer experience by providing complete data analysis solutions for our customers using NimbleGen arrays for CGH analysis. At the same time we are excited about the opportunity to develop a strong business relationship with BioDiscovery in offering complete solutions to our customers in genomics and life sciences,” said Srini Ramachandra, Senior Director for Software Marketing at Roche NimbleGen. “We are thrilled about working with Roche NimbleGen in providing a complete and validated solution to our customers. The powerful combination of our technologies enables scientists to analyze data from millions of probes across thousands of samples to quickly arrive at important biological insights,” said Dr. Soheil Shams, President of BioDiscovery. “We look forward to expanding our relationship with Roche NimbleGen and furthering the state of technology in genomics research.” Roche NimbleGen is a leading innovator, manufacturer, and supplier of a proprietary suite of DNA microarrays, consumables, instruments, and services. Roche NimbleGen uniquely produces high-density arrays of long oligo probes that provide greater information content and higher data quality necessary for studying the full diversity of genomic and epigenomic variation. The improved performance is made possible by proprietary Maskless Array Synthesis (MAS) technology of Roche NimbleGen, which uses digital light processing and rapid, high-yield photochemistry to synthesize long oligo, high-density DNA microarrays with extreme flexibility. For more information about Roche NimbleGen, please visit the company’s website at www.nimblegen.com. About Roche Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world’s leading research-focused healthcare groups in the fields of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. As the world’s biggest biotech company and an innovator of products and services for the early detection, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, the Group contributes on a broad range of fronts to improving people’s health and quality of life. Roche is the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics and drugs for cancer and transplantation, and is a market leader in virology. It is also active in other major therapeutic areas such as autoimmune diseases, inflammatory and metabolic disorders and diseases of the central nervous system. In 2007 sales by the Pharmaceuticals Division totalled 36.8 billion Swiss francs, and the Diagnostics Division posted sales of 9.3 billion francs. Roche has R&D agreements and strategic alliances with numerous partners, including majority ownership interests in Genentech and Chugai, and invested over 8 billion Swiss francs in R&D in 2007. Worldwide, the Group employs about 79,000 people. Additional information is available on the Internet at www.roche.com. About BioDiscovery Founded in 1997 in Los Angeles, BioDiscovery is a leader in the development of microarray bioinformatics software and services. BioDiscovery develops and sells advanced software solutions and services that enable its customers to revolutionize drug discovery and diagnostics by efficiently managing, integrating, and analyzing data generated using high-throughput microarray technology. BioDiscovery provides a full line of modular software packages spanning the entire microarray process, including enterprise data management, image processing, data mining, statistical analysis, and collaborative knowledge management. For more information about BioDiscovery, please visit the company’s website at www.biodiscovery.com

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