Amersham plc Purchases Motorola Life Science's CodeLink Pre-arrayed Slides Business.

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

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LONDON--(BW HealthWire)--July 25, 2002

Acquisition provides strong position in rapidly growing arrays

market, with potential for broadening application into diagnostics

Amersham plc (LSE, NYSE, OSE: AHM) today announced the acquisition of Motorola Life Science's CodeLink(TM) pre-arrayed slides business for $20 million.

The acquisition moves the company into the pre-arrayed slides market, building on the well-established position that Amersham Biosciences, the life sciences business of Amersham plc, has long held in the self-spotted array market. The microarray market, estimated to be worth over $500 million, is one of the most rapidly growing areas in the life sciences field, with annual growth of 20 per cent. Products today are most commonly used for studying gene expression, but a significant opportunity exists for broadening this into applications for SNP analysis and protein research, and clinical diagnostics.

Arrays are chips, or small slides onto which genes and proteins are placed. They are used to study how genes or proteins are "expressed" - switched on or switched off - in a particular disease state, so that researchers may understand the relationship between gene or protein function to disease and thus design better therapeutic drugs and diagnostic tests. The Motorola CodeLink platform is based on a unique, patented manufacturing process that produces high-quality arrays with better sensitivity, reproducibility and more useable data points than others on the market. Key personnel will transfer to Amersham and the company expects to continue manufacturing CodeLink products in Tempe, Arizona.

"Arrays are already a powerful tool in genetic research and have excellent potential for applications in many other areas. Motorola has developed a unique array manufacturing process which we believe produces the most advanced and traceable format of any array technique available," said Sir William Castell, Chief Executive, Amersham plc. "The quality of Motorola's CodeLink business combined with our existing array expertise and strong global marketing franchise should lead to substantial returns on today's investment."

"Amersham Biosciences has been a key player in the gene expression field for several years, providing our leading edge Lucidea(TM) and CyDye(TM) products to customers who want to create and analyse arrays in their own laboratories," said Andrew Carr, President, Amersham Biosciences. "This acquisition builds on that strong foundation and propels us immediately into the rapidly expanding pre-arrayed slides market, where we believe there are significant opportunities."

Amersham plc (LSE, NYSE, OSE: AHM) is a world leader in medical diagnostics and in life sciences. Headquartered in the UK, the company has annual sales of (pound)1.6 billion (US $2.3 billion) and 9,500 employees worldwide. Its strategy is to build its position as a leading provider of products and technologies enabling disease to be better understood, diagnosed earlier and treated more effectively. For more information, visit our website at www.amersham.com.

Conference call

A conference call with Sir William Castell (Chief Executive, Amersham plc) and Andrew Carr (President, Amersham Biosciences) will be held on Thursday 25 July, at 9.30am EDT / 2.30pm BST, to discuss this acquisition. Investors, analysts and journalists who would like to participate should dial [phone] or 1 800 530 2462 (US). An audio replay of the call will be available for seven days and can be accessed by dialing [phone] or 1 800 495 0250 (US). The passcode for both replay numbers is 457982.