Briefs

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 21 /PRNewswire/

LeadScope(R) Inc. today announced that AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) has
licensed the LeadScope Enterprise(TM) software and ToxScope(TM)
databases to assist in evaluating high throughput screening (HTS)
campaigns, correlating biological information with structural features
of chemical libraries to create a data mining system that incorporates
advanced searching and browsing capabilities.

LeadScope Enterprise is a new server-based decision-support software
solution that promises seamless access to corporate data, along with
chemically based data-mining and visualization capabilities.

The ToxScope databases encompass acute toxicity, hepatotoxicity,
mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. ToxScope enables the user to make
side-by- side comparisons of efficacy screening and toxicity
information, use structural alerts from any source, explore chemical
space of any data set and manage complex in-house data.

"Getting the most out of the data generated from the huge investment
pharmaceutical companies have made in high throughput screening and
combinatorial chemistry is key to accelerating drug discovery,"
commented Pamela Springer, Vice President of Sales for LeadScope
Inc. "We are thrilled that AstraZeneca has selected the LeadScope
Enterprise product to data mine their corporate chemical and
biological screening databases."

"We have found LeadScope Enterprise to be very useful in rapidly
identifying correlations between chemical structural features and
biological activity, thereby improving the quality of research
decisions in the early HTS evaluation phase," commented Christer
Westerlund, for AstraZeneca, Medicinal Chemistry Molndal, Sweden.

AstraZeneca is a major international healthcare business engaged in
the research, development, manufacture and marketing of ethical
(prescription) pharmaceuticals and the supply of healthcare
services. It is one of the top five pharmaceutical companies in the
world with healthcare sales of $15.8 billion and leading positions in
sales of gastrointestinal, oncology, anesthesia (including pain
management), cardiovascular, central nervous system (CNS) and
respiratory products.

Since 1997, LeadScope Inc. has focused on creating chemically
intelligent decision-support software that meets the changing needs of
life scientists. The LeadScope product line includes LeadScope
Enterprise, server-based decision-support software; Personal(TM)
LeadScope, the desktop version of Enterprise; ToxScope, a series of
toxicity databases; and soon-to-be released GeneScope(TM), a gene
expression analysis and chemical genomics system.

The expertise of LeadScope ( http://www.leadscope.com ) includes an
in- depth knowledge of advanced informatics technology and the
services necessary to help organizations effectively extract and
visualize the valuable knowledge contained in research data. LeadScope
Inc. is dedicated to working with their customers to shorten drug
development time and dramatically increase the quality of research
decisions.