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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
eworldwire/August 16, 1999--Euroscreen s.a. today announced that The University of Georgia Research Foundation (UGARF) has granted it an exclusive license to its worldwide patent portfolio for the use of aequorin and its derivatives in cellular assay applications for which apoaequorin gene expression is used to mediate cell surface receptor screening. UGARF has a broad patent portfolio covering the detection of changes in calcium concentration through aequorin-mediated light emissions including US Patents # 5,162 227; 5,422,266; 5,744 579; 5,798,441; 5,766,941; as well as over 25 related European, Japanese and other patents around the world. "This license is a significant addition to Euroscreen's intellectual property portfolio and complements our own Euroscreen patent filing which enables the use of aequorin in the high throughput screening of cell surface receptors," said Pierre Nokin Ph.D., Euroscreens chief executive officer. We are pleased to secure this broad license to support our orphan G-protein coupled receptor research programs. This AequoScreen system provides an excellent, alternative technology for the detection of agonist or antagonist binding to cell surface receptors. We plan to find partners for our GPCR programs who are also interested in the broad use of these patented, screening technologies. We will also license this capability to pharmaceutical companies on reasonable terms outside of the orphan GPCR research area to provide these research efficiencies which otherwise require very costly licensing of alternative technologies today." "We are pleased to have Euroscreen as our licensee in this area," stated Kannan Grant, associate director of technology licensing at the UGARF office. "We have other licensees for other applications of our aequorin patents outside of this area, but Euroscreens additional patented technology and existing cell line business made them a preferred exclusive partner for us in this field of high throughput, cell-based, drug screening. Euroscreen plans to finalize its first collaborative research agreement with a major pharmaceutical company later this year in order to pursue the functionation of orphan GPCRs for drug discovery programs. The company designs and develops additional, proprietary drug discovery systems and services to accelerate and enhance the discovery of GPCR-related drugs. SOURCE: eworldwire CONTACT:
Euroscreen s.a. Foundation
Pierre Nokin, Ph.D.
Kannan S. Grant
Chief Executive Officer
+(32) 2 529-0011
www.euroscreen.be University of Georgia Research
Kannan S. Grant
Associate Director, Technology Licensing
(706) 542-3819
www.ovpr.uga.edu/urf/starturf.html HTML: http://www.eworldwire.com/wr/81699/euroscreen.htm Press Release Distributed By eworldwire http://www.eworldwire.com
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Message posted by: Frank S. Zollmann
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