Biacore Announces the Launch of XenoSense Ltd And Creation of New Business Unit for the Food Industry

Biacore Announces the Launch of XenoSense Ltd And Creation of New Business Unit for the Food Industry th Uppsala, Sweden, 27 October, 2000. Biacore International AB (Biacore) (SSE: BCOR; Nasdaq: BCOR) today announced the formation of XenoSense Ltd., a Belfast (Northern Ireland) based company, which will develop and produce reagents and kits for the analysis of food products using Biacore's SPR technology. Biacore has provided initial funding to XenoSense, along with the University Challenge Fund, which is owned by Queens University and University of Ulster in Belfast, and private investors. Biacore also announced today that it has established a new business unit to manage its operations and evaluate opportunities within the food analysis industry. In conjunction with its formation, XenoSense has signed an agreement with the Department of Agricultural and Rural Development (DARD) in Northern Ireland. Under the terms of this agreement XenoSense has the right to commercialise a number of products and certain areas of research developed by DARD in the field of food analysis. XenoSense will focus its research efforts on the development of new Qflex analyte kits for the analysis of food products using the recently ® introduced BIACORE Q system. Each analyte kit contains a sensor chip and the reagents needed to detect a specific analyte and when combined with the BIACORE Q system enables routine concentration analysis to be undertaken. XenoSense aims to build on the technology that Biacore has introduced in earlier analyte kits that are used in conjunction with the BIACORE Q system, such as those for the analysis of folic acid and biotin in fortified foods and vitamin B12. Biacore has also announced today the creation of a new business unit, Business Unit Food, to enable it to fully capitalize on the potential of its SPR technology in the area of food analysis. Biacore has undertaken technical and business development activities in the food analysis area since 1993. The formation of this new Business Unit is therefore an important development in Biacore's ambitions to play a significant role in improving the quality of food analysis globally over the next decade. Dr Esa Stenberg has been appointed Vice President and Head of Biacore's Business Unit Food. For the last seven years Esa has been the manager of Biacore's R&D Department of BIA technology and has been responsible for the technical evaluation of Biacore's SPR technology for food quality and safety analysis. "The formation of XenoSense Ltd. has been driven by the need to address increased public concerns about the composition and quality of food, in particular the presence of harmful agents such as chemical residues, toxins and bacteria," commented Esa Stenberg, Chairman of Xenosense Ltd and Vice President and Head of Business Unit Food at Biacore. "There is a clear need for a reliable method to detect the presence of contaminants, for example antibiotics, in food and we are confident that the reagents that we intend to develop at Xenosense can play an important role in achieving this goal." Welcoming today's announcement Brid Rodgers, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development for Northern Ireland said, "I am extremely pleased that Biacore has decided to support the setting up of XenoSense in Belfast. The decision highlights both the positive business environment, and the high level of scientific expertise that exists in Northern Ireland and we look forward to seeing its technology playing an important role in improving food quality in the future." Ulf Jonsson the President of Biacore commented: "The formation of our new Business Unit Food is designed to allow us to capture the real commercial value of our SPR technology in the area of food analysis." - Ends - This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which, by their nature, involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Notes to editors: 1 Biacore is a global market leader in Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) based technology with its own sales operations in the U.S., across Europe, in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The technology is protected by a strong patent portfolio. Target groups consist primarily of medical and life science research laboratories and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies all over the world. Biacore focuses on drug discovery as the prime area for future growth. The company currently has six systems on the ® market with its BIACORE 3000 system offering specific application in drug discovery processes upstream of high-throughput screening (HTS). A new high-performance is currently under late-stage development and will focus on applications downstream of HTS. Based in Uppsala, Sweden, the company is listed on the OM Stockholm Exchange and Nasdaq in the U.S. In 1999 the company has sales of SEK 340.4 million and an operating income of SEK 67.6 million. Further information on Biacore can be found on the web: www.biacore.com Address and phone: Biacore International AB Rapsgatan 7, SE-754 50 Uppsala, SWEDEN Phone: +46 (0)18-675700 Fax: +46 (0)18-150111 info@biacore.com 2 University Challenge Fund is a newly launched funding body based in Northern Ireland. The financers are Queens University and the University of Ulster in Belfast. UCF is administrated by QUBIS Ltd., a company which to date has established more than 20 spin-out companies from research performed within the Queens University. 3 DARD is the Department of Agricultural and Rural Development in Northern Ireland. For further information, please contact: Ulf Jönsson, President, Biacore +46 18 67 57 00 Esa Stenberg, Vice President and Head of Business Unit Food, Biacore +46 18 67 57 00 Scientific/Trade Press Enquiries: David Dible, HCC.De Facto Group +44 (0) 207 496 3300 ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by BIT http://www.bit.se The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/10/27/20001027BIT00600/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/10/27/20001027BIT00600/bit0002.pdf