SARomics Biostructures introduces services for academic groups

Lund, November 10, 2008 - The Lund-based structural biology contract research company SARomics Biostructures AB announced today that they will expand their range of services to include academic groups. Compared to corporate customers the academic groups will gain access to protein crystallization and protein structure determination services for prices, which should prove highly competitive with the traditional model of academic collaboration.

SARomics Biostructures has since 2006 provided structural biology services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Typical projects include structure determination of protein-inhibitor complexes, where access to structural information increases the molecular understanding and enables faster project executions.

The recent development in low volume and high-throughput protein crystallization together with recent advances in synchrotron-based x-ray crystallography technologies have drastically reduced the time and effort required for relatively straightforward structure determinations, as well as reducing by approximately a factor of ten the amount of material required for initial crystallization trials. Through an agreement with MAX-lab, the Swedish national synchrotron radiation laboratory, SARomics Biostructures can access crystallization robotics and synchrotron beamlines free of charge for academic projects. Therefore, our services can be offered for a reduced price for non-commercial work.

SARomics Biostructures has, together with two different research groups at Lund University, recently determined the crystal structures of human galectin-3 in complex with two novel inhibitors to an unusually high resolution and of a bacterial carbohydrate binding module with two carbohydrate ligands. These two projects validated our business model where non-commercial structures could be determined for a fee ranging between 25 000 - 50 000 SEK. These prices are very competitive in relation to the costs of determining such structures through traditional academic collaborations, with their associated salaries, overheads and material costs.

About SARomics Biostructures AB

SARomics Biostructures AB is a privately held contract research organization specialized in structural biology services. We accelerate our customers' drug discovery process by providing contract R&D support in the areas of protein crystallization, protein structure determination and NMR spectroscopy. Access to structural information increases molecular understanding and enables faster project executions.

SARomics Biostructures is equipped with state-of-the-art robotics for low volume high-throughput crystallization and X-ray diffraction experiments. Our lab is located "down the hall" from MAX-lab, the Swedish national synchrotron radiation laboratory, which provides us with an X-ray source perfectly suited for protein structure determination. As a complement to our structural biology services we also offer molecular modelling and computational chemistry R&D support through our partner company SARomics AB. SARomics provides services covering all aspects of in silico drug discovery thus enabling a complete solution for structure-based drug design.

For further general information please visit www.saromicsbiostructures.com.

If you have any questions please contact Dr Björn Walse, Director Sales & Marketing, SARomics Biostructures AB, +46 46 191276.