Agencourt Announces Partnership with Ambion, Leader In RNA-Based Life Science Research And Molecular Diagnostics.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

BEVERLY, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 16, 2003

Ambion's MessageAmp(TM) RNA Amplificiation Kit to Include

Agencourt's Patented AMPure(R) PCR Purification Reagents 

Agencourt Bioscience Corporation, a provider of genomic services and nucleic acid purification products to the life sciences industry, today announced a partnership with Ambion, Inc., a leader in RNA-based life science research and molecular diagnostic products. Under the terms of the agreement, Ambion will distribute AMPure(R), Agencourt's SPRI(TM)-based nucleic acid purification reagent, as a component in its MessageAmp RNA amplification kit. Agencourt's SPRI (Solid Phase Reversible Immobilization) chemistry is a patented, high performance purification technology based on the selective immobilization of nucleic acids onto magnetic microparticles.

"Agencourt is thrilled that Ambion will integrate our products within its RNA amplification kits. Ambion has always been dedicated to offering products of the highest quality and we believe its decision to include AMPure within their kits underscores the superior performance of SPRI technology," said Lynn Doucette-Stamm, Vice President, Business Development for Agencourt Bioscience.

"As part of the development of our RNA amplification kit it was essential that we have a reliable, high quality purification reagent. Our evaluation of different technologies identified Agencourt's AMPure system as the optimum nucleic acid purification reagent for inclusion in our MessageAmp kit," said Matt Winkler, CEO at Ambion, Inc. "We feel our RNA amplification reagents and Agencourt's SPRI chemistry come together to create a state-of-the-art product which greatly simplifies the process of RNA amplification commonly required in DNA microarray studies."

About Agencourt Bioscience Corporation

Agencourt Bioscience Corporation is a provider of genomic services and nucleic acid purification products that help biotech and pharmaceutical companies improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their drug development pipelines. Agencourt's Discovery Solutions(TM) suite of genomic and functional genomic services includes high-throughput sequencing, SAGE(TM) sequencing, library construction and SNP discovery. The company's purification products and services are based on the proven and patented Solid Phase Reversible Immobilization (SPRI) technology, which has been adopted by several of the largest genome research facilities, resulting in more base pairs contributed to GenBank than any other nucleic acid purification technology and used to sequence over one-third of the human genome. Agencourt has been confirmed to be operating in compliance with the requirements of the Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) as a contract analytical laboratory. Several of Agencourt's founders worked at the Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research, and have significant experience in combining the chemistries and instrumentation for high-throughput genomics. Agencourt is located in Beverly, Massachusetts and is available on the Web at www.agencourt.com.

About Ambion, Inc.

Ambion, Inc., is a market leader in the field of RNA-based life science research and molecular diagnostic products. Ambion maintains this leadership role by consistently developing innovative products for handling, preserving, isolating, detecting and measuring RNA. These products are used for research in areas such as molecular biology, cell biology, microbiology, drug discovery, genomics and molecular diagnostics. Ambion is located in Austin, Texas and is available on the Web at www.ambion.com.