RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Oct. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Icoria,
Inc. (Nasdaq: ICOR), a biotechnology company, announced today that Agilent
Technologies has been approved by the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) Advanced Technology Program (ATP) to partner with Icoria in
its continuing work on an $11.7 million ATP grant. The grant was originally
awarded in June of 2002 to Icoria and its initial partner, LION bioscience AG,
but LION has since withdrawn from participation and has now been replaced by
Agilent. The grant remains the largest ever awarded by the ATP in the area of
bioinformatics. The goal of this grant is to support the development of a
Target Assessment Technologies Suite (TATS) for the improved discovery and
validation of targets for product development in the pharmaceutical and life
sciences.
In addition to substantial capabilities in software engineering and
commercialization, Agilent brings to the agreement a data association
framework called Agilent Synapsia Informatics Workbench that provides
scientists with the ability to better understand and utilize vast amounts of
genomic, proteomic, toxicologic, and drug efficacy data. The framework will
be further enhanced to support integrated biological research with funding
from this grant. Agilent's software development capabilities match well with
Icoria's systems biology measurement technologies and data coherence analysis
platform to address the goals of this grant, including the development of a
commercializable software product.
"This agreement expands our long-standing relationship with Agilent and
not only provides superior technology in the form of systems biology
informatics tools, but adds commercialization potential that was not
previously present," said Thomas J. Colatsky, Ph.D., Vice President of Human
Health Research at Icoria. "We look forward to working with Agilent in the
ongoing development of important new technologies that enable scientists to
gain greater insight into the development of safer and more effective
medications."
"This grant is a true validation of the substantial scope of our software
development capabilities," said Fran DiNuzzo, Vice President of Integrated
Biology Solutions at Agilent Technologies. "Our solutions are already being
used for target validation within life science companies, and we look forward
to extending and enhancing these capabilities with the support of NIST.
Additionally, we are pleased, once again, to be working with Icoria, whose
systems biology approach is an excellent complement to our strategy and
technologies."
In conjunction with the ATP grant, Icoria has successfully completed the
first technical milestone objective associated with this grant. The completed
milestone was for the development, validation, and analysis of a coherent data
set, the first of three to be developed under the grant. The data set is
based on Icoria's investigation of liver injury in rats induced by
acetaminophen, a common pain reliever. This work also involved the discovery
of biomarkers indicative of hepatoxicity (liver toxicity).
In addition, Icoria announced that Dr. Imran Shah, Head of the Company's
Computational Systems Biology group, would be the principal investigator in
support of this ATP grant. Dr. Shah has ten years of experience in
computational biology on novel methods understanding enzymatic functions and
biochemical pathways. Prior to joining Icoria, Dr. Shah was on the faculty of
the School of Medicine, University of Colorado, in Denver. He was the
Principal Investigator on federally sponsored research grants regarding the
computational inference of gene function and biological networks. He was also
the co-founder and Director of the first Doctoral Program in Bioinformatics at
the University of Colorado.
About Icoria
Icoria is a biotechnology company applying its proprietary systems biology
platform to the discovery and development of safer, more effective drugs and
agrichemicals. Icoria, formerly known as Paradigm Genetics, has major
collaborations with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences,
Bayer CropScience, the Monsanto Company, Pioneer Hi-Bred International (a
subsidiary of DuPont), the National Institute of Standards & Technology's
Advanced Technology Program, and L'Oreal Inc. For more information,
visit http://www.icoria.com .
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including
statements regarding the Company's expectations for using its systems biology
platform to discover biomarkers and inaccessible targets for small molecule
discovery. Such forward-looking statements are based on management's current
expectations and are subject to a number of risks, factors and uncertainties
that may cause actual results, events and performance to differ materially
from those referred to in the forward-looking statements. These risks, factors
and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, Icoria's early stage of
development, history of net losses, technological and product development
uncertainties, reliance on research collaborations, uncertainty of additional
funding and ability to protect its patents and proprietary rights. Certain of
these and other risks are identified in Icoria's annual report on Form 10-K
for the year ended December 31, 2003 and in its quarterly report on Form 10-Q
for the quarter ended June 30, 2004, each filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. The Company does not intend to update any of the forward-
looking statements after the date of this release to conform these statements
to actual results or to changes in our expectations, except as may be required
by law.
SOURCE Icoria, Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.icoria.com
CONTACT:
Brian Ritchie or Mark Vincent of EURO RSCG
Life NRP, +1-212-845-4200; or Christina Maehr of Agilent
Technologies, +1-408-553-7205
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