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The license gives Pharmacia Biotech the rights to manufacture and sell Taq DNA polymerase and other thermostable enzymes and products in the research market for use in the PCR process. The license also enables Pharmacia Biotech to develop Ready-To-Go(TM) PCR beads to researchers performing PCR amplification.

Roche and Perkin-Elmer have granted the license to Pharmacia Biotech as part of their program to accelerate the development of PCR applications; the license is a non-exclusive contract valid for the life of Hoffman-LaRoche's PCR patents. Pharmacia Biotech has held a license from Perkin-Elmer for the rights to manufacture and sell Taq for research applications other than PCR.

"Pharmacia Biotech is pleased to have negotiated this license with Hoffman-LaRoche. We can now offer unique benefits to our customers," said Bengt Belfrage, executive vice president, Pharmacia Biotech. "Ready-To-Go PCR beads will be convenient to use, and will provide a novel way of minimizing the chances of contamination, which is an important issue with those performing PCR," Belfrage continued.

Ready-To-Go beads, a new generation of reagent formulation from Pharmacia Biotech, are pre-mixed, single dose and stable at ambient temperatures. These attributes are the result of a proprietary technology that converts each reaction mix into a small solid bead that is easy to visualize and dissolves readily in water. Ready-To-Go PCR beads will contain deoxynucleotides, Taq DNA polymerase and PCR buffer to which the researcher adds PCR primers to produce a complete PCR mixture. This procedure will reduce pipetting steps, thus minimizing the chances of contamination.

Since its discovery in the early 1980s, PCR has been widely adopted and is used throughout the world by laboratories at universities, companies, and the criminal justice system. PCR technology enables molecular biologists to reproduce very small quantities of DNA or RNA into quantities large enough to be detected and interpreted. PCR has diagnostic applications for diseases such as HIV infection, tuberculosis, chlamydia, and for monitoring cancers in remission, and shows great promise in the diagnosis of genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis.

Pharmacia Biotech is a leading developer and global supplier of chemicals, instruments and expertise for biological, medical, and biotechnological research products and is the world's largest supplier of separation media, electrophoresis, and specialty biochemicals to the bioprocessing industry. The company's products are used by scientists at academic and research institutions and at research and production departments of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies throughout the world. Pharmacia Biotech is certified according to ISO 9001, has annual sales of $400 million, employs more than 2,400 people worldwide and is headquartered in Uppsala, Sweden.

Hoffman-LaRoche, with worldwide headquarters in Basel, Switzerland and U.S. headquarters in Nutley, New Jersey, is a world leader in original research and development in the health care field. Through the company's three diagnostic divisions, Roche Biomedical Laboratories, Roche diagnostic Systems, Inc., and Roche molecular systems, Inc., innovative testing products and services are made available to physicians, patients, hospitals and laboratories worldwide.

The Perkin-Elmer Corp. is the world leader in the manufacture, development and distribution of analytical instruments and life science systems used in markets such as environmental, biotechnology, chemical, food and agriculture.

CONTACT: Makovsky & Co., New York Jennifer Gurkin 212/508-9674

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