SENGENT TEAMS WITH SUN MICROSYSTEMS IN EFFORT TO RAPIDLY ACCELERATE IDENTIFICATION OF DRUGS AGAINST BIOLOGICAL WEAPONSSENGENT TEAMS WITH SUN MICROSYSTEMS IN EFFORT TO RAPIDLY ACCELERATE IDENTIFICATION OF DRUGS AGAINST BIOLOGICAL WEAPONSSengent's Launch Last Week of Its Drug Design and Optimization Lab Against Bioterrorism Has Drawn a Significant Positive Response from the Public and Corporate Sectors
BOCA RATON, FL -- December 17, 2001 -- Sengent, Inc., an emerging leader in computing and information solutions for the scientific and financial community, announced today that as part of its effort in the fight against bioterrorism, it has signed a joint engineering and marketing agreement with Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s Life Science Group. Engineers from Sun and Sengent will develop strategies to support Sengent's Drug Design and Optimization Lab which leverages libraries of more than 2 million existing small molecule compounds to rapidly analyze those compounds and identify structures that have significant promise to fight the post-exposure effects of biological weapons and diseases, such as smallpox - for which there is currently no cure. This privately-funded project is based in part on emerging distributed computing technology, which allows the public to donate their idle computer time to help develop drug candidates. In turn, participants will receive clear, visual explanations demonstrating progress in the drug discovery process. "We have received incredible response to our introduction last week of the Drug Design and Optimization Lab, which we hope will accelerate the rapid identification of small-molecule drug candidates to fight the post-exposure effects of biological weapons, including anthrax and smallpox," said Doug Nassaur, Chief Operating Officer of Sengent. "We are pleased to have solidified a joint engineering and marketing agreement with Sun's Life Science Group to optimize the Drug Design and Optimization Lab. In our search for a technology partner, we spoke with many leading companies, including IBM. We selected Sun because we felt they best demonstrated the vision and technology leadership, both in hardware and grid computing, that we could trust with this mission-critical program. Both Sengent and Sun recognize the opportunity to apply our technology to contribute to a public cause while at the same time reduce the necessary investment required to bring a drug to market. According to the latest reports, that can cost up to $800 million. Our technology can cut that figure significantly." The anticipated development of a combined solution will represent a "killer application" for distributed and grid computing technology. The companies will also share scientific advisors and influence the formation of standards organizations. "Through our new distributed computing project, the public is contributing at a rate beyond what we imagined," added Mr. Nassaur. "In less than a week, we have experienced massive download requests from all over the United States and from countries worldwide, including Japan and Australia. Thanks to the public's contribution, the Drug Design and Optimization Lab has generated a number of interesting drug candidates for our proprietary smallpox and anthrax targets in just a few days. We are now much closer to our goal of powering the world's first global computing grid targeted specifically at diseases with no known cures." "Sun is built on open technologies, which are essential to help scientists work together in global communities. Sun has long supported the grid computing model and the concept of resource management and sharing, and we believe its many advantages, including increased efficiency and productivity, will speed Sengent's drug discovery research, " said Siamak H. Zadeh, Group Marketing Manager of Life Sciences at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Sengent has created proprietary improvements advancing grid computing for an important effort that we, at Sun, not only want to get behind, but also know we can add great value to quickly." About Sengent, Inc.Sengent, Inc. is a privately funded technology firm based in Boca Raton, Florida. Founded in 1999 to advance the application of distributed computing to complex issues, it established the Drug Design and Optimization Lab in 2001 to expedite and lower the cost of identifying drugs capable of addressing general health issues. The public can contribute to this project on the World Wide Web at http://www.sengent.com. About Sun Microsystems, Inc.Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com
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