ACLARA Biosciences and PE Biosystems Sign Drug Screening Collaboration.

HAYWARD, Calif. & FOSTER CITY, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--April 21, 1999--

Microfluidic Screening Systems to Target Drug Discovery and

Agricultural Research

PE Biosystems, a Perkin-Elmer Corporation (NYSE:PKN) business, and ACLARA BioSciences, Inc. announced that they have entered into a collaboration agreement to develop systems for the high-throughput screening (HTS) of drug candidates.

The HTS systems will combine ACLARA's proprietary microfluidic chip technology with PE Biosystems' strengths in the development of instrument systems for life science markets.

ACLARA and PE Biosystems each have substantial research and development programs focused on the application of microtechnologies to drug screening. The collaboration announced today builds on these existing efforts, which have resulted in several prototype instruments being developed under research and technology access programs at the two companies.

"Drug screening represents a key growth opportunity for PE Biosystems, consistent with our focus on life science markets," said Michael W. Hunkapiller, Ph.D., president of PE Biosystems. "We recognize the value that microfluidics can bring in addressing customer needs, including the need to cost-effectively analyze massive libraries of drug candidates using minute amounts of reagents. The combined technical and intellectual property strengths of PE Biosystems and ACLARA provide the opportunity to bring these benefits to our current and future customer base."

Joseph M. Limber, President and Chief Executive Officer of ACLARA, commented, "ACLARA's microfluidic chip technology enables rapid separations and high-sensitivity detection at volumes that are 1,000 times smaller than even high-density microwell plates. As a result, we expect this technology to have application across a broad range of assays in pharmaceutical discovery and agricultural research."

The collaboration will leverage ACLARA's microfluidics and microfabrication technologies with the expertise and capabilities from multiple centers of excellence within PE Biosystems, including the separation and systems engineering strengths of PerSeptive Biosystems and the biological assay development and high-throughput screening expertise of Tropix. In addition, Applied Biosystems brings expertise in capillary electrophoresis and fluorescent detection that has been incorporated in several highly successful commercial products, including multiple generations of DNA sequencers.

ACLARA and PE Biosystems intend to form technology access partnerships with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and agricultural biotechnology companies, providing early access to systems resulting from this collaboration.

This represents the second major collaboration between ACLARA and PE Biosystems. In May 1998, the two organizations announced a collaboration to develop and commercialize microfluidic-based systems for genetic analysis.

ACLARA BioSciences is a privately held company applying advances in microfabrication and microfluidics to develop and apply new tools for drug discovery and genomics. By performing integrated sample processing and analysis on microfluidic chips, these tools enable the rapid, parallel processing of large numbers of samples requiring only minute volumes of expensive or rare reagents. For more information about ACLARA, contact Joseph M. Limber at [phone], ext. 153, or visit ACLARA's web page at http://www.aclara.com.

The Perkin-Elmer Corporation comprises three divisions. The PE Biosystems Division, with sales of $922 million during fiscal 1998, supplies instrument systems, reagents, software, and related services to the life science industry and research community. The Analytical Instruments Division, which the Company has entered into an agreement to sell, had sales of $609 million during fiscal 1998 and is a leader in supplying a broad range of instruments to the pharmaceutical, environmental, food, chemical, petrochemical, and related industries. Celera Genomics, a newly formed business unit, intends to become the definitive source of genomic and related medical information. Headquartered in Connecticut, Perkin-Elmer had revenues of more than $1.5 billion in fiscal 1998 and employs more than 7,000 people worldwide. Information about Perkin-Elmer is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.perkin-elmer.com or by phoning [phone].

Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking. These may be identified by the use of forward-looking words or phrases such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "should," "planned," "estimated," and "potential," among others. These forward-looking statements are based on Perkin-Elmer's current expectations. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for such forward-looking statements. In order to comply with the terms of the safe harbor, Perkin-Elmer notes that a variety of factors could cause actual results and experience to differ materially from the anticipated results or other expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties that may affect the operations, performance, development, and results of Perkin-Elmer's businesses include but are not limited to (1) rapidly changing technology and dependence on new products; (2) sales dependent on customers' capital spending policies and government-sponsored research; (3) risk of claims for patent infringement; (4) significant overseas operations; (5) future growth strategy; (6) uncertainty of success of Year 2000 compliance program; (7) risk of earthquakes in California; and (8) other factors that might be described from time to time in Perkin-Elmer's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.