FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 22, 2003

Frost & Sullivan's Analysis of the World Structural Proteomics Market.

Proteomics Offers Various Opportunities to Improve Drug Development Process

May 22, 2003

The increasing number of drug discovery initiatives by biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies toward structure-based drug design is rapidly advancing structural proteomics technologies and driving their adoption.

Structural proteomics involves determination of the structure of large numbers of proteins on an industrialised research scale. Combining structural biology with computational and medicinal chemistry can help design drugs that are more effective.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (www.biotech.frost.com), World Structural Proteomics Market, reveals that the protein purification and molecular structure market generated USD 87 million and USD 151.6 million, respectively, in 2002. This is expected to rise to USD 221.4 million and 319.9 million in 2009.

"Structure-based drug design has significant potential to reduce the costs and time commitments associated with traditional drug discovery methods," says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Sinead Igoe.

With the sequencing of the human genome completed, research focus has turned to the study of the products of these genes - proteins. As interest in structural proteomics rises, both government and private entities are making significant investments to capitalise on the new information and generate novel drugs.

Understanding exactly how small molecules bind to their protein target is a factor vital to proteomics studies and protein crystallography helps researchers in this process. Automated protein crystallisation offers the high throughput that is needed for high throughput protein crystallography.

However, the difficulty of obtaining high purity level proteins and large quantities of crystals is impeding rapid growth in structural proteomics studies.

The high cost of ultra high field instruments is also slowing placement despite the interest and demand from researchers in the academic and pharmaceutical labs. Manufacturers need to increase the awareness of the benefits for the researcher attached to these expensive instruments.

In addition, suppliers need to increase the upgrade and replacement rates of the instruments and pursue partnerships with informatics companies to fully integrate growing data requirements.

"Nurturing early access agreements with leading research institutes will help ensure commercial success," says Igoe.

Frost & Sullivan will hold this conference call at 2:00 p.m. (CDT) / 3:00 p.m. (EDT) on Thursday, June 5, 2003, which will provide industry participants an overview of the World Structural Proteomics Market. To participate, please email Danielle White at dwhite@frost.com with the following information: Name, Company, Title, Telephone Number, and email. Upon receipt of the above information, a confirmation/pass code will be emailed to you.

Background
Frost & Sullivan is an international marketing consulting company that monitors a comprehensive spectrum of markets for trends, market measurements and strategies. This on-going research is utilised to complement a series of research publications to support industry participants with customised consulting needs. Interviews and free executive summaries are available to the press.

Report Title: World Structural Proteomics Market
Report Code: A460

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