Biosearch Licenses Genetic Technologies Non-Coding DNA Patents.

NOVATO, Calif. -- Biosearch Technologies, Inc. (BTI) announced today it has been granted a worldwide license to the non-coding DNA patents owned by Genetic Technologies Limited, (NASDAQ GM: GENE, ASX: GTG). BTI becomes the first oligonucleotide synthesis company to take a license from GTG to specifically manufacture and distribute oligos, probes and primers for research use only (RUO), under the GTG patents. The GTG license extends to all genomes and includes Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) genotyping and allelic discrimination. All Biosearch DNA customers will now be covered under the GTG patents with their use of Biosearch's products for RUO.

Dr. Mervyn Jacobson, the founder of GTG, and currently a Director and Licensing Consultant to the company, expressed delight at the satisfactory completion of these negotiations. "It was a pleasure to work with Biosearch to put this agreement together. We now look forward to further collaborating with Biosearch. Hopefully, we can now help Biosearch also expand its activities into the Asia-Pacific region, where we already enjoy an established presence through our own testing activities."

Ron Cook, Ph.D., Biosearch Technologies' CEO comments, "Genetic analysis of non-coding genomic regions is fundamental to modern genotyping methodology. What is not appreciated by many, is that the process of analyzing non-coding genomic space (intergenic and untranslated regions, such as introns) for genetic markers and respective haplotypes, was invented well before the term SNP was popularized in the mid 90's. Genetic Technologies holds patents, filed as early as 1989, which cover the fundamental process of intron analysis. The inventions also include an improved mapping method, which is based on the ability to identify haplotypes of individuals through analysis of non-coding region sequence variation patterns, particularly intron sequence variation patterns. While GTG has actively offered licenses to their IP, until now, there has been no convenient way for those performing research using intron-based genotyping, to obtain such a license. We are happy to report that under our licensing agreement with GTG, all of Biosearch's oligonucleotide products are now licensed for research use under the GTG patents and so enable the legitimate practice of non-coding DNA analysis."

"Biosearch is a market leader in the supply of probe and primer technology for the measurement of gene copy number, and with our agreement with GTG in hand, we expect to expand our position to include SNP genotyping as well."

Additional information about Biosearch and its products is available on www.biosearchtech.com.

Additional information about GTG is available on www.gtg.com.au.