Amersham Biosciences Creates Linnaeus Chair At Muhlenberg College.

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ALLENTOWN, Pa. & PISCATAWAY, N.J.--(BW HealthWire)--May 22, 2002

Dr. Sandy Weinberg has been named to the Linnaeus Chair at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA.

The professorship is a gift from Amersham Biosciences, a proven separations industry leader.

Dr. Weinberg is Vice President for Entrepreneurship at Muhlenberg College, where he also directs the Institute of Entrepreneurship. He has founded six international biomedical companies, and has invented a number of biomedical devices. He has served as an advisor and consultant to Amersham Biosciences for the past 11 years as an advisor for Fast Trak, a unique service offered by the company to provide training and consulting to help biopharmaceutical companies achieve optimal performance from their separations systems, both in chromatography and cross-flow filtration.

Dr. Weinberg has also worked with Amersham Biosciences by auditing their UNICORN(TM) software, a control system for real-time control of chromatography systems. This allowed Amersham Biosciences to ensure that UNICORN met the U.S. Food & Drug Administration's requirements for 21 CFR 11, which provides criteria for acceptance of electronic records and signatures.

The Linnaeus Chair, named for Carolus Linnaeus, the 18th Century Swedish biologist known as the father of modern biological classification, will provide funding for biopharmaceutical separations technology education and research. Its mission is education in the field of biopharmaceutical separations and will familiarize scientists in the industry with the latest methods and technologies available.

Development and commercialization of biopharmaceuticals requires the production of large quantities of biomolecules (active drug substances). To ensure the safety and efficacy of these substances, the FDA and other regulatory agencies have stipulated very high and well-defined standards of purity. Biomolecules produced in cell culture (whether in bacteria, yeast, or other cells) must be separated from all potentially toxic components of the culture. Separating and purifying these substances often requires multiple sequential steps, each utilizing a very specific and robust separations technique. Chromatography and cross-flow filtration are the most commonly used separations techniques.

Amersham Biosciences' longstanding expertise in protein purification and its gold standard chromatography systems, columns, and media have made it a market leader in laboratory and industrial scale separations. Positioned at the forefront of functional biology, the company's goal is to develop practical technologies, systems and applications that enable and represent the next generation of molecular medicine. Headquartered in Piscataway, New Jersey, Amersham Biosciences has offices worldwide, including a major Research & Development and Production site in Uppsala, Sweden, a city that has long served as a hub for the European biotechnology industry.

"Amersham Biosciences is pleased to support Muhlenberg College and to honor the name of a great Swedish inventor, educator and biologist who contributed so much to the life sciences," said Dr. Robert Kennedy, Director, Separation Sciences North America at Amersham Biosciences. "We are confident that Dr. Weinberg will continue to serve the biotechnology industry with his writings and regulatory interpretations and will help Amersham Biosciences establish a leadership position in education for the industry."

"Muhlenberg College is the ideal and appropriate home for the Linnaeus Chair," adds Arthur Taylor, President of Muhlenberg College. "We are a national leader among liberal arts colleges in the field of biomedicine, and are centrally located to ensure ease of access for both students and educators involved in the program. We are looking forward to working with Amersham Biosciences to bring forth much needed education in the separations industry."

Muhlenberg College is a highly selective, independent, undergraduate, coeducational institution located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1848 to provide a liberal arts education in a humanistic tradition, Muhlenberg College is committed to high standards of academic integrity and excellence.

Amersham Biosciences, the life sciences business of Amersham plc (LSE, NYSE, OSE: AHM), is a world leader in developing and providing integrated systems and solutions for disease research, drug development and manufacture. Their systems are used to uncover the function of genes and proteins, for the discovery and development of drugs and for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals. The customers for Amersham Biosciences' products and technology are pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and research and academic institutions, principally in North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. For more information about Amersham Biosciences, please visit their website at www.amershambiosciences.com

Amersham Biosciences - enabling molecular medicine