DUKE/ARDAIS LAUNCH BIOREPOSITORY FOR CANCER RESEARCH.

Ardais Corporation and Duke University Medical Center have announced the establishment of a new Biorepository that will provide human biomaterials and clinical data for clinical research in cancer to Duke's NCI-supported Breast SPORE programs as well as to the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The new Biorepository, based on the pioneering biomaterials initiative begun four years ago by Duke and Ardais, will address the biomaterials requirements of Duke researchers as they conduct a new generation of clinical trials in which cancer is analyzed and treated at the molecular level. While cancer is the initial disease focus of the Biorepository, it will be expanded in the future to other diseases. The new Biorepository is driven by Ardais' Biospecimen Management System encompassing institution-wide collection and archiving of samples and data; rigid ethics-based protocols for collection, processing, archiving and dissemination; large- scale dedicated IT capability to process huge amounts of clinical data while protecting patient privacy; and the ability to network seamlessly with other cancer centers and drug innovators as additional alliances are formed in the future.

H. Kim Lyerly, M.D., Director of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, noted: "As we strive to improve the odds for all cancer patients, we need to move research gains from lab bench to bedside, and that means informing our clinical trials with molecular data that can only be drawn from well characterized and clinically annotated biomaterials. This new Biorepository will give researchers access to large, systematized collections of such biomaterials that can be standardized across a national network in coming years. Equally exciting is the opportunity for the thousands of cancer patients who participate in Duke's clinical trials each year to become even more actively involved in the research process."

Robert L. Taber, Ph.D., Vice Chancellor Science and Technology Development at the Duke University Medical Center, added: "This collaboration is at the forefront of numerous scientific, clinical and institutional trends, and expands on an already successful alliance between Duke and Ardais."

The Ardais Biospecimen Management System is a seamless solution for the management of biorepositories -- comprised of protocols, IT and an operational platform -- that results in high-quality biomaterials and data for research. The system is now available to academic medical centers as well as to pharmaceutical and biotech companies who are already applying -- or who aspire to apply -- a molecular approach to biomedical discovery and development.

"Ardais was established to modernize the use of human biomaterials for research, and our Biospecimen Management System is fulfilling that vision. We believe this new collaboration with Duke validates yet again our commitment to the highest quality in everything we do to facilitate research and clinical development," said Donald Hawthorne, CEO of Ardais.

Duke University Health System (DUHS) is a non-profit, fully integrated academic health care system dedicated to providing patient care, professional education and biomedical research. DUHS includes Duke University Hospital, Durham Regional Hospital; Raleigh Community Hospital; ambulatory surgery centers; primary and specialty care clinics; home care, hospice, skilled nursing care; wellness centers; and community-based clinical partnerships and is integrated with the Duke University School of Medicine and the Duke University School of Nursing.

About Ardais Corporation

Ardais Corporation is the leading provider of clinical data and biomaterials resources for the application of molecular medicine in drug discovery and development. The company is dedicated to improving human subjects-based translational research at academic medical centers, as well as biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

Ardais also offers biospecimen management solutions, encompassing deployment and operational management services, biospecimen procurement protocols and software, patient enrollment, clinical data collection and quality management systems. Ardais' unique platform addresses ethical, legal and biological concerns and enables biomedical researchers to collect, annotate, manage and distribute their human biological material resources.

Ardais' expanding biomaterials portfolio, sourced from more than 16,000 patients, has more than 200,000 high-quality tissue samples, including the following:

1. Formalin-fixed and frozen samples with associated clinical information

2. Tissue microarrays for high throughput parallel analyses

3. Molecular derivatives, including RNA, DNA and protein lysates

4. Immunohistochemistry services utilizing both formalin-fixed and frozen tissue resources

For more information, visit http://www.ardais.com or call 617/577-8110 or 781/698-0191.