Tripos Inc., a provider of drug discovery chemistry and informatics products and services, announced that it intends to streamline its Discovery Research business and has initiated the 30-day consultation period with employees mandated by U.K. law when job losses are expected in the range of 20 to 99 positions. Any headcount reduction, which will reflect the evaluation and signing of certain pipeline opportunities, is expected to be finalized by the end of January 2006. Tripos Discovery Research Ltd. (TDR) currently has 164 employees, most of which are based at its facility in England. Read the press release.
Genedata announced the multi-year expansion of its collaboration with Roche to include all Roche high-throughput screening (HTS) facilities in North America and Europe. Scientists at Roche use Genedata Screener to estimate the biological potency of thousands of compounds as part of a unique lead discovery workflow. Initiated originally at Roche's research facility in Basel, the collaboration has integrated Genedata's data quality evaluation and analysis workflow with Roche's global screening infrastructure. Read the press release.
454 Life Sciences Corporation, a majority-owned subsidiary of CuraGen Corporation, announced today the initiation of a collaborative research agreement with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Under the collaboration, researchers at the Broad Institute will use 454 Life Sciences' system to conduct disease-related genomic studies in order to study the genetic basis for complex diseases, such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. 454 Life Sciences has enabled its Genome Sequencer 20 System to perform "Ultra-deep Sequencing" of specific genes of interest for use in the collaboration. Website: www.454.com
Linguamatics, a player in natural language processing (NLP), announced that AstraZeneca PLC has extended its license agreement for continued access to an Intelligence Network-based text mining solution for the analysis of research and other literature provided by Linguamatics in combination with the Intelligence Network expert, BioWisdom Ltd. The original user license was signed in October 2003. Read the press release.
U.S. Genomics announced that John J. Canepa has been promoted to president, chief executive officer, and member of the board of directors. U.S. Genomics is a developer of single molecule analysis technologies for life science and biodefense applications with a platform that directly detects and quantitates individual molecules of miRNA, DNA, RNA, and proteins without the need for amplification. Read the press release.