Bellbrook Labs | Biology at Work

For immediate release
October 14, 2004

BellBrook Labs Sends Drug Discovery Kits to Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for Field Testing.

Madison WI - BellBrook Labs today, announced that it has sent new Transcreener™ high throughput screening kits to Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals for field testing. High throughput screening is the process used by pharmaceutical companies in the early phase of new drug development. This kit is the first to market for testing an important class of drug metabolizing enzymes.

BellBrook Labs was founded in August of 2002 to take advantage of the rapidly growing need for high throughput screening assays in drug discovery laboratories. With five employees located in state-of-the-art laboratory/office facilities in Madison’s MG&E Innovation Center, BBL has developed a proprietary technology platform - called Transcreener™ - that has unmatched flexibility and ease-of-use advantages in the $500M HTS assay market. BellBrook Labs plans to introduce a series of drug discovery kits based on the Transcreener TM technology over the next two years including first-to-market assays for several emerging families of drug targets, and first-to-market assays for drug metabolism targets.

It takes ten to twelve years to bring a new drug to market at an average cost of $800M, and the overall success rate is less than 20%. BellBrook Labs (“BBL”) is developing solutions that will make drug discovery programs faster, and less expensive. The Transcreener™ platform will change the metrics of drug discovery by eliminating months of costly assay development for each drug target.

To date, the company has financed operations with federal grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health, a state-sponsored loan, and owner investment, and they are anticipating their first round of equity financing to establish a sales and marketing infrastructure for Transcreener™ products.

Biology at Work