Paradigm Genetics, Inc. (Nasdaq: PDGM) and LION Bioscience AG (Nasdaq: LEON, Neuer Markt: 504 350, LIO), today announced they have established a five-year strategic alliance to co-develop and co-market a new plant and fungal metabolic profiling database that can be used for target identification and validation. This is an expansion of the alliance initiated in January 2000. The two companies are developing new bioinformatics software and solutions based on LION's and Paradigm's technologies to develop new applications for the human health care, nutrition, crop production and industrial markets. The companies will share revenues from the sale of the database, bioinformatics tools and solutions that result from the collaboration.

"This is a first step in our plan to enter the human health care market. We believe that the metabolic profiling database will be a valuable tool in the pursuit of novel drugs. Approximately 50% of new drug leads are derived from natural products from plants and fungi," said John Ryals, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Paradigm Genetics. "We are pleased to be collaborating with LION, a proven and respected leader in the bioinformatics software area, to develop this database and new software solutions that can be very useful to many researchers."

"By extending our collaboration with Paradigm, we will intensify our offerings in the field of agricultural biology," said Dr. Friedrich von Bohlen, Chief Executive Officer of LION. "This alliance aims to build an expanded, integrated knowledge platform in the field of agro-sciences, including proprietary data sets, data integration and analysis tools. Together with our recently announced partnerships with Celera and Nestle in the pharmaceutical and food sectors, we have expanded and further strengthened our position to become the premier informatics supplier for the Life Science industry."

The new user-friendly and adaptable database containing plant and fungi data will supply information for target identification and validation based on Paradigm's existing metabolic profiling database. Under the agreement, LION's powerful data integration technology, SRS, which integrates unique and diverse data from multiple databases, will be customized for the management of DNA sequence data and metabolite profiling data. SRS will provide the foundation for both companies' software components to enable the determination of functional genomics information contained in Paradigm's FunctionFinder(TM), to analyze high-throughput gene function determination via Paradigm's GeneFunction Factory(TM), to perform expression analysis with LION's arraySCOUT(TM), and to identify biological pathways via LION's pathSCOUT(TM) system, which will be released soon. Under the agreement, the database will be populated with data from Paradigm Genetics' GeneFunction Factory (TM) maximizing Paradigm's expertise in genomics, metabolic profiling and bioinformatics data processing.

LION Bioscience AG is a pioneer in the field of enterprise-wide R&D data analysis and information management systems and solutions for the life sciences and, ultimately, the healthcare industry.
To date, LION AG has established numerous alliances in informatics and genomics with leading Life Science research companies, including Aventis, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Celera, DuPont, Glaxo Wellcome, Janssen, Merck Inc., Novartis, Pharmacia & Upjohn and SmithKline Beecham and Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals. i-biology(TM) is LION's corporate-wide, cross-discipline research IT-management solution which enables research organizations to more
effectively manage and use the knowledge that is currently distributed across their organizations.

Paradigm Genetics is industrializing the process of gene function discovery for four major sectors of the global economy: human health, nutrition, crop production, and industrial products. The company has designed the GeneFunction Factory (TM) -an integrated, rapid, industrial-scale
laboratory through which it discovers gene function. Paradigm and its strategic partners intend to develop novel products using information developed with the GeneFunction Factory (TM). Paradigm's GeneFunction Factory(TM) is based on a state of the art phenomics platform integrated with metabolic profiling and gene expression profiling technologies. The backbone
of the GeneFunction Factory(TM) is the company's proprietary FunctionFinder(TM) bioinformatics system, used to collect, store, analyze, and retrieve information. 

Company news release
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