Agencourt Unveils High Speed Plasmid Purification Kits.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

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

Based on its SPRI(TM) Technology, SPRINTPrep(TM) and CosMCPrep(TM)

Further Expand Agencourt's Suite of Purification Products

Agencourt Bioscience Corporation, a provider of genomic services and nucleic acid purification products to the life sciences industry, today introduced two new plasmid purification reagent systems. Based on Agencourt's patented Solid Phase Reversible Immobilization (SPRI) technology, SPRINTPrep and CosMCPrep further expand Agencourt's suite of purification products to include high throughput, high quality purifications of high and low copy plasmids.

SPRINTPrep is a rapid and easily automated purification system for high copy plasmids, which can be completed in less than 15 minutes. SPRINTPrep isolates plasmid DNA directly from overnight growth cultures without the need to harvest cells, which can improve the turn around time of any sequencing pipeline by as much as a full day. Its simple protocol requires no sample transfers, no cell pelleting, no centrifugation or filtration and is easily automated. SPRINTPrep is available in 96 and 384-well formats to meet all throughput requirements.

SPRINTPrep has been validated on more than 200,000 cDNA clones as part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) project. Agencourt has submitted over 750,000 cDNA sequences to GenBank(R), the NIH genetic sequence database of all publicly available DNA sequences. Agencourt continues to do large-scale cDNA library screening as part of this initiative.

CosMCPrep is a versatile, high quality plasmid purification system that uses a single protocol to purify a variety of high and low copy number template types including BACs, fosmids and cosmids. With genome centers' increasing reliance on whole genome shotgun sequencing, fosmid end sequencing has become a necessity for every genome project. Traditionally, purification of low copy plasmids can be challenging due to the low numbers per cell. CosMCPrep eliminates this problem, enabling the efficient, fully-automated purification of low copy plasmids such as BACs, cosmids and fosmids. The single protocol, ease of automation and high quality results makes CosMCPrep ideal for all template purification needs.

CosMCPrep was used as the exclusive template purification method for Agencourt's work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the University of Maryland School of Medicine in sequencing the genome of the bacterium Rickettsia sibirica, one of the 16 species in the genus Rickettsia known to cause human disease in regions around the world. Using CosMCPrep, Agencourt was able to complete all sequencing in less than four days.

"SPRINTPrep and CosMCPrep complement Agencourt's current nucleic acid purification offering and demonstrate our continued success in addressing the evolving needs of the life science community," said Kevin McKernan, co-chief scientific officer of Agencourt Bioscience. "As demonstrated through our work with the CDC, NIH and University of Maryland School of Medicine, our new purification systems will be of tremendous value in helping speed research initiatives and improve the efficiency of drug development pipelines. Our rapid plasmid purification not only produces background-free, high fidelity template for sequencing, it also produces functional plasmid DNA that can be used in various expression and functional genomic studies. Template amplification-based methods are no longer shortcuts with respect to these new SPRI-based products."

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 include high-throughput sequencing, SAGE(TM) sequencing, SNP discovery and genotyping. 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. 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.