Munich, Germany, October 2000

Joint Venture with Xerion Pharmaceuticals GmbH to develop a new MicroCALI technology

TILL Photonics GmbH (Munich, Germany) announced the start of a collaborative project with Xerion Pharmaceuticals GmbH (Munich, Germany).

Under the terms of the collaboration, an advanced technology platform will be developed, which allows to extend Xerion's proprietary XCALIbur™ technology to the single cell level. XCALIbur™ represents a functional protein knockout technology utilized to validate protein drug targets involved in disease processes within the cell.

Dr. Klaus Schaller, Managing Director of TILL Photonics, noted that TILL gladly takes the opportunity to demonstrate that its modular technical platform for widefield- and scanning microscopy can readily be adopted for functional proteomics.

TILL's aim is to develop specifically tailored systems which spur further methodical progress in the field of Biotechnology.

Heart of most systems is a unique illumination unit (Polychrome), which fibre-couples monochromatic light into the microscope and allows to switch between wavelengths in the range from 320 to 680 nm within 3 ms. Based on the Polychrome, complete imaging- or photometric systems are available for ultrasensitive real-time and automated measurements under computer control.

Dr. Leodevico L. Ilag, Xerion's Managing Director and Chief Scientific Officer, commented: "The collaboration with TILL allows us to utilize their leading edge technology for functional proteomics and to benefit from their expertise in applying photonic techniques and laser physics to biological systems. Extending the XCALIbur™ technology to subcellular domains will facilitate the validation of certain protein targets for cellular phenotypes of primary human diseased tissue that can be better observed at the single cell level. This development will expand the realm of targets that Xerion can validate for its partners and for the company's internal disease programs."