BIOBASE Commences the Exclusive Distribution of BRENDA-AMENDA, the Enzyme Information System, as a Special 'Industrial Package'.

WOLFENBUTTEL & COLOGNE, Germany -- BIOBASE and Enzymeta GmbH announced the signing of a new, modified contract for the distribution of the BRENDA database to commercial buyers. From the end of June onwards, the database will be available as the new enzyme information system BRENDA-AMENDA, specifically adapted for industrial use.

By May 21st, 2006, BIOBASE and Enzymeta GmbH adopted a new subsequent distribution agreement for the commercial use of the BRENDA(R) database to support the initiative of the European Union's FELICS project. In addition, BIOBASE assumes the exclusive distribution of the AMENDA(TM) module with immediate effect.

Up to now, the available relational BRENDA(R) system consisted of an intuitive interface, a special substructure search and data relating to biochemical and molecular information on enzymes and ligands. Prof. Dr. Dietmar Schomburg, University of Cologne, founder of the database explains "now BRENDA(R) is effectively supplemented through a fivefold increase in the enzyme-related references obtained from the AMENDA(TM) system. A sophisticated text mining system filters 15 million PubMed articles and makes information available that is specially adapted for industrial applications."

"To save on time and costs, companies are interested in quickly receiving enzyme data, for designing assays and for compiling overall catalogs of all published literature on individual enzymes including their synonyms, filtered according to relevance," explains Holger Karas, SVP Business Development, BIOBASE. "This is what AMENDA(TM) provides, organism-specific information, e.g. relating to tissues and cellular localisations. Flexible licensing terms and excellent scientific support round off the BRENDA-AMENDA industrial package."

From June 2006, companies can obtain a license for the new product BRENDA-AMENDA from BIOBASE. Further information can be found at www.biobase-international.com.

BRENDA-AMENDA (www.brenda-enzymes.org)

The development of the BRENDA(R) database (Braunschweiger Enzym Datenbank) began in 1987 lead by Prof. Dr. Schomburg at the German Research Centre for Biotechnology (GBF) Braunschweig and is continued today by the University of Cologne and the Enzymeta GmbH.

BIOBASE (www.biobase-international.com)

BIOBASE, based in Wolfenbuttel (Germany) and Beverly MA (USA), is the leading content provider of biological databases. The BIOBASE Knowledge library includes many industry standards like TRANSFAC(R), TRANSPATH(R) , YPD(TM), HumanPSD(TM) and others. In addition, BIOBASE aggregates a growing portfolio of third-party databases such as BRENDA(R) and HGMD(R) from commercial vendors and universities. More than 600 customers currently subscribe to BIOBASE's database portfolio.

FELICS

The EU project, FELICS (Free European Life_science Information and Computional Services, http://www.embl.org/aboutus/news/press/2006/03may06/index.html) plans to make biological data bases, including the BRENDA data in the form of structured text files, freely accessible for international research in the future.