FMAT System Provides Technology Access for Accelerated Pharmaceutical Lead Discovery; New Fluorometric Microvolume Assay Technology To Be Licensed.

FOSTER CITY, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--Oct. 6, 1998--PE Biosystems, a division of the Perkin-Elmer Corporation (NYSE:PKN), and Biometric Imaging(R) Inc. (BMI) announce a Technology Access Program for the FMAT(tm) System, a novel technology platform for homogeneous live-cell and bead-based high-throughput screening assays.

Designed to reduce the cost of -- and time for -- assay development and high-throughput screening, the FMAT(tm) System includes the instrument platform, licensee-specified enhancements and other hardware and software improvements, training and technical support, maintenance and repairs, consulting on assay and reagent design, and development and supply of customized fluorescent-labeled assay components.

"The significant trends in high-throughput screening include more cell-based assays, chemiluminescence and fluorescence, which replace radioactivity, homogeneous assay formats, multiplexing and smaller assay volumes in higher density plates," according to Jon P. Miller, Ph.D., director of pharmaceutical marketing at PE Biosystems. "We concluded that BMI's microvolume fluorimetry, which is the basis for the FMAT(tm) System, is the only platform that meets all these needs today and can evolve to meet the ever increasing demands of drug discovery.

"The FMAT(tm) System also leverages PE Biosystems' established expertise in fluorescent dyes, conjugation chemistries and assay development; its ability to deliver robust instrument and reagent systems; and its worldwide technical support and service organization."

Screening applications include cell- and bead-based assays for receptor binding; enzyme inhibition; cell surface expression of receptors, adhesion molecules and other proteins; soluble factors; gene expression, cell function, apoptosis and cytotoxicity.

At throughputs of 75,000 assays per day, the FMAT(tm) System differentiates between background fluorescence and that associated with cells or beads. This cell-by-cell (or bead-by-bead) analysis eliminates the need for wash (or other separation) steps and creates mix-and-read screens that simplify assay development, reduce the number of assay steps and improve data quality.

The FMAT(tm) System is designed to work equally well with 96-, 384-, 864- and 1536-well plates because it interrogates a one-square-millimeter field within each well. Engineered with a 633-nm laser and designed to use red fluorescent dyes, the FMAT(tm) System avoids cellular autofluorescence and provides a sensitivity of 5,000 fluorochromes per cell or per bead.

This exquisite sensitivity reduces reagent use and yields a 100-fold decrease in cost per assay. Yielding low CV's with as few as 50 cells per field, the FMAT(tm) System further reduces the cost per assay by decreasing the number of cells required per well. Using two different fluorescent dyes and the system's two detectors, the FMAT(tm) System enables multiplexing of screens.

Founded in 1991, BMI was the first company to address the critical need for standardized cell function diagnostics in the emerging field of cell therapy. Cell therapy uses transfused cells from a patient or donor to achieve a desired therapeutic effect in diseases such as cancer and AIDS.

The company's patented microvolume fluorimetry technology provides rapid, precise and easy-to-perform cell enumeration, as well as cell characterization in routine clinical settings. Biometric's cell therapy products are designed to ensure the integrity of transfused cells, optimize cell therapy procedures, and monitor both disease progression and the efficacy of therapy.

PE Biosystems is the world leader in creating innovative life science systems for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agriculture, human identification, and food and environmental research.

To help pharmaceutical companies discover and develop a greater number of drugs and to shorten the time from target discovery to market introduction, PE Biosystems develops automated systems, provides customized services and offers access to new technologies for target identification and validation, lead discovery and optimization, preclinical testing, clinical development and manufacturing.

Headquartered in Connecticut, Perkin-Elmer had revenues of nearly $1.5 billion in fiscal 1998 and employs more than 6,500 people worldwide. Information about Perkin-Elmer is available on the Worldwide Web at http://www.perkin-elmer.com or by phoning 800/762-6923.

Note to Editors: FMAT and PE Biosystems are trademarks, and Perkin-Elmer is a registered trademark of the Perkin-Elmer Corporation. Biometric Imaging is a registered trademark of BioMetric Imaging, Inc.