Strand and Pharmidex to Collaborate to Produce a New in silico Technology for CNS
Drug Discovery

Bangalore [February 20, 2006] -

Strand Life Sciences, the premier in silico technologies innovation company announced today that it has entered into collaboration with Pharmidex, a world leader in assessing the ability of compounds to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB).

Both companies focus on providing solutions to facilitate the discovery and development of new medicines. Under the collaborative agreement, both Strand and Pharmidex will promote each other’s existing offerings and jointly develop new software to predict the ability of compounds to cross the BBB. This effectively combines the in silico expertise of Strand with the BBB-focused offering of Pharmidex, which includes in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo (NeuroPK®) methodologies.

"CNS is a challenging area and this collaboration gives us access to data that can be used to build good predictive models," said Kas Subramanian, CSO of Strand Life Sciences. "We will be building predictive models for BBB based on in vitro and ex vivo data generated by Pharmidex. This will also help expand our pre-built ADME model suite in our product admetis," he added.

"Current software models to predict BBB penetration are not informed by a consistent set of experimental data, which means that their use is limited. By providing a consistent set of data, we will work with Strand to produce the world’s best software package to predict the ability of compounds to cross the BBB," said Mohammad Alavijeh, CSO of Pharmidex. "The new software will have immense value to all companies engaged in CNS drug discovery and will also help non-CNS drug discovery, where knowledge that compounds do not cross the BBB reduces the likelihood that lead compounds will be associated with CNS side effects," he added.

About Strand Life Sciences Pvt Ltd

Strand Life Sciences is a premier in silico technologies innovation company focused on developing technologies for drug discovery and development. Strand has three streams of business spanning early target discovery through pre-clinical development. The first is centred on informatics tools and solutions for the research biologist with a focus on visualization and analytics for array technologies and including oligo design, image analysis and information management systems. A second stream of products include a cheminformatics modeling platform admetis and proprietary in silico predictive models for small molecule drug properties like ADME and Cardiotoxicity with models for Hepatotoxicity in the pipeline. Strand also partners with discovery contract research companies to combine in silico and wet labs to offer services starting from compound library design to lead generation. Please visit www.strandls.com for more information.

About Pharmidex

Headquartered in London, Pharmidex focuses on the prediction and assessment of the ability of potential new medicines to cross the permeability barrier between blood and brain the blood-brain barrier (BBB). As world-leaders in the provision of solutions in relation to drug discovery and the BBB, their offering adds value by both accelerating time to market and improving the probability of success of potential CNS medicines. Pharmidex has clients worldwide and last year was awarded the prestigious ‘Service Company of the Year’ by UK Trade and Investment. For further information see: www.pharmidex.com.

Contact Strand Life Sciences -
Sowmyanarayan
India Office - Tel: (91) 80 2361 8992
E-mail: snarayan@strandls.com

Contact Pharmidex -
Dr Mohammad S. Alavijeh
UK Office - Tel: +44 (0) 870 240 5978
E-mail: mo.alavijeh@pharmidex.com