Companies to Offer Protein Biomarker Discovery and Validation In Tissue

Gaithersburg, MD, and Graz, Austria, May 4, 2007 – Expression  pathology Inc. and ORIDIS Biomed GmbH (Graz, Austria) announced today a strategic alliance to offer tissue microproteomic capabilities for protein biomarker discovery and validation. The relationship combines Expression Pathology’s proprietary Liquid Tissue® and DIRECTOR™ technologies, which enable mass spectrometry-based discovery and measurement of protein biomarkers in archival tissue, with ORIDIS Biomed’s TISSOMICS™ research platform for high-throughput analysis of healthy and diseased patient tissue and its access to formalin-fixed tissue samples associated with longitudinal clinical and pathology information.

”We are pleased to enter into a strategic alliance with ORIDIS Biomed“, said Casey Eitner, CEO, Expression Pathology. "This alliance will provide a powerful new option for drug and diagnostic developers to identify and measure protein biomarkers that relate to specific disease progression, drug response, and toxicity."

"We expect this partnership with Expression Pathology to serve the rapidly growing needs in tissue micro-proteomics”, added Dr Peter Hecht, CEO ORIDIS Biomed. ”This partnership provides a unique opportunity to mine tissue archives with detailed clinical outcomes and pathology data by mass spectrometry and state-of-the-art pathology techniques.”

Under the terms of the agreement both parties will offer collaborative research capabilities and services to biopharmaceutical, diagnostic and academic clients. Each party will also serve as a business development agent to its partner’s technologies in its domestic geographical markets.

About Expression Pathology Inc.
Expression Pathology Inc., Gaithersburg, MD, has developed innovative, proprietary techniques for analysis of protein biomarkers in tissue. Liquid Tissue® reagents and techniques make possible extraction of proteins from formalin-fixed tissue for in-depth proteomic profiling by LC MS/MS mass
spectrometry. The company employs AQUA™ peptides with Liquid Tissue® to quantitate specific proteins, individually and multiplexed, in tissue. Its DIRECTOR™ laser microdissection slides enable direct, non-contact harvesting of fine cellular features from standard tissue sections. More information is available at www.expressionpathology.com.

About ORIDIS Biomed
ORIDIS Biomed, Graz, Austria, is a biotechnology company focused on the commercialization of its proprietary TISSOMICS™ research platform in collaborations with industrial partners. TISSOMICS™ is a proprietary platform enabling the discovery and validation of medically relevant biomarkers. The TISSOMICS™ platform includes the use of optimized genomic and proteomic approaches, consistent quality assurance processes, and ORIDIS Biomed’s in-house pathology expertise for the interpretation of tissue-based disease data. The company also uses the TISSOMICS™ platform in its own biomarker discovery & development programs and for companion diagnostics. ORIDIS Biomed has a license from the Medical University of Graz, Austria for the commercial access to BioResource-Med biobank, one of the world’s largest collections of diseased human tissues and associated medical data. For more information, please see www.oridis-biomed.com.