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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact for IMC:
Sushma S. Shenoy, 703.871.8731, sushma@imc.com
Media Contact for Expression Analysist:
Jim Parina
724-935-7029, jparina@expressionanalysis.com
IMC retains Expression Analysis for Affymetrix GeneChip® processing services for the National Institutes of Drug Abuse Clinical Trial Contract
Durham, NC – June 7, 2006: Expression Analysis, Inc., a full-service microarray processing, analysis and data management organization, has entered into an agreement with IMC, an award-winning solutions company, to provide isolation of genomic samples and Affymetrix microarray processing for samples from a clinical trial IMC is conducting on an award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
IMC received a grant last year from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct a clinical trial utilizing their software, TeraGenomics, a high performance data warehousing solution for managing, analyzing and sharing Affymetrix GeneChip® microarray data to analyze the effectiveness of a compound used to treat addiction to methamphetamine. TeraGenomics has been utilized successfully in other genomic microarray applications.
After researching the market for a vendor to process the microarrays involved in the study, as well as some ancillary services, IMC decided on Expression Analysis. “We felt Expression Analysis provided the expertise, capabilities and flexibility we required in a microarray processing partner because of the way we knew this project would evolve and change as it progressed,” said Gregg Wright, Sr. VP Business Development and Solutions at IMC. “Besides being price competitive, Expression Analysis demonstrated a willingness to work with us to solve process problems as they became apparent.” Expression Analysis will isolate genomic samples and analyze those on both gene expression and genotyping microarrays for IMC.
“We are very pleased that IMC has selected us to provide these services for their project,” said Steve McPhail, President and CEO of Expression Analysis. He continued, “We have built our business model around providing microarray services in a regulatory compliant environment, and focusing on communications and flexibility with clients in meeting their needs. The projects our clients bring us continue to validate our plan of supporting the value of microarray data generation in clinical trials.”
Expression Analysis, in collaboration with the CDER and Schering-Plough, became the first company to submit electronic microarray data to the FDA in 2003 to assist the Agency in understanding how this data might be used in a regulatory submission. In 2004, Expression Analysis became the first microarray processing laboratory in the world to achieve compliance with Good Laboratory Practice regulations and CLIA registration in 2005. These and other collaborative activities, including standardization initiatives and development of expertise in a variety of blood-based protocols, have allowed the company to build its infrastructure to facilitate the use of microarray technology in support of pharmaceutical clinical trials. Expression Analysis continues to develop its proficiency to service the needs of the pharmaceutical industry. The company has also demonstrated its expertise in completing projects for clients utilizing Affymetrix’s new 500K Mapping Array Set and Exon Arrays.
About TeraGenomics
TeraGenomics is a high-performance data warehousing solution for managing, analyzing, and sharing Affymetrix® GeneChip® gene expression microarray data. It can scale to support hundreds of users analyzing data from tens of thousands of GeneChip arrays. TeraGenomics has a MIAME-compliant metadata structure comprised of 140 data elements within controlled vocabularies (e.g., for organism, anatomy, and disease type) accessed through drop-down menus. Microarray data in the warehouse can be queried by any of these elements. TeraGenomics takes advantage of the detail-rich, probe-level feature information in Affymetrix GeneChip .CEL files to calculate gene expression levels, calls, and associated statistics. The application computes pair-wise comparisons among dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of chips through a rapid point-and-click interface, and stores the comparison results in the warehouse for reuse.
The application is a browser-based thin client solution that can be securely deployed over the web or on an intranet. TeraGenomics' web-based solution combines power and flexibility to allow customers to choose between a non-ASP or ASP hosted solution. The ASP solution currently hosted by IMC at the IMC's data center contains data from over 7,000 microarrays. Including the subsequent data analysis the resulting database contains more that 4 billions rows.
About IMC
IMC, Inc. is an internationally recognized systems and software development firm known for building innovative IT custom and packaged solutions for government, commercial businesses, higher education and scientific organizations. The company has expertise in medicine, public health, epidemiology, biology, entomology, statistics, and biomedical informatics. IMC and all its subsidiaries have a global presence and offer a variety of services focused on integrating technologies to solve complex business problems.
For more than 20 years, IMC has been delivering award-winning solutions to public sector and commercial clients including Bank of America, the Chicago Board of Options Exchange, PepsiAmericas, the Salk Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Justice and Merck Pharmaceuticals , among others. For more information, please visit us at www.imc.com .
About Expression Analysis
Expression Analysis, Inc., (www.expressionanalysis.com) is a full-service microarray genetics testing and analysis organization dedicated to providing clients with the highest quality genomic processing and data analysis services using Affymetrix GeneChip® brand technology. Expression Analysis is a leading U.S.-based authorized service provider for Affymetrix (www.affymetrix.com), a California-based company that develops and commercializes systems to help researchers explore the relationship between genes and human health.
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