Thu, Aug 15, 2002: Genentech Licenses PROSPECT Software to Aid in Drug Discovery

BSI is pleased to announce that Genentech Inc., an established California based Biotech company has licensed our PROSPECT software to aid their protein research which leads to the delivery of innovative medicines to patients with serious or life-threatening medical conditions. PROSPECT is an award-winning predictive tool for finding the 3D structure of a protein. Determining the structure of a protein is required to determine how a protein functions - an important element in the drug discovery process. Genentech uses PROSPECT to mine for specific members of protein families and then investigates those sequences which score well against a subset of backbones that belong to specific protein families of interest. Large pharma and biotechnology companies like Genentech realize the benefits and cost savings of outsourcing software like PROSPECT to BSI抯 bioinformatics specialists who can offer superior quality and competitive prices for both off-the-shelf software and customized software solutions. Genentech Inc. uses human genetic information to discover, develop, manufacture and commercialize biotherapeutics that address significant unmet medical needs. The company manufactures and commercializes 10 protein-based products for serious or life-threatening medical conditions -- giving Genentech one of the leading product portfolios in the biotech industry. BSI continues to develop advanced algorithms and innovative software that provide real solutions for today抯 proteomics and drug discovery. In addition to PROSPECT, BSI offers other products like PatternHunter, desktop homology software that is at least two orders of magnitude faster than Blast at the same sensitivity and PEAKS new software for the automatic de novo sequencing of peptides. The company also specializes in customization software development for biotech and pharmaceutical companies. BSI is headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario.