• Historic event: “Mammalian Gene Collection” completed
• For the project GENEART synthesized approx. 2,400 genes
• Additional growth impulses expected for the gene synthesis market

Regensburg, November 10, 2008 – GENEART AG, global leader in gene synthesis and specialist in the field of Synthetic Biology, announces the successful conclusion of its project with the US National Cancer Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health) in regard to the “Mammalian Gene Collection” (MGC) today.

Over the past two years GENEART has synthesized approximately 2,400 genes and 1,500 gene variants for the MGC’s completion with an order volume of about USD 6M. These were in large parts highly complex gene sequences, which could not be isolated within the scope of the MGC project using classic methods of biotechnology over the years 2002 to 2006. The MGC now provides scientists worldwide for the first time with easy access to all 25,000 human genes. A progress, which may tremendously expedite the search for innovative therapies and drugs, for example for various types of cancer.

“The MGC’s completion is as similarly a historic event as the finalization of the Human Genome Project in 2004”, stated Prof. Dr. Ralf Wagner CEO/CSO of GENEART AG. “We are therefore pleased that we were able to overcome the problems of traditional technologies with our gene synthesis platform and to directly contribute to this scientific accomplishment.”

At the time it was achieved to completely decode the human genome within approximately 14 years, and thus to provide the order of the letters of the human gene sequence in electronic form for the first time. The MGC’s completion now provides scientists with access to the respective physical genes.

“We anticipate the MGC gene library to contribute to a further opening of the market and to provide additional growth impulses for the gene synthesis market”, stated Christian Ehl, CEO/CFO of GENEART AG. “Because quick access to the human genome opens diverse opportunities for biomedical applications and thus also promotes demand for customized genes for the development of innovative drugs and therapy concepts.”

The completion of the NIH project posed the biggest challenge yet in the history of GENEART AG. Many of the produced genes were very long and displayed complex sequential repetitions. In order to be able to also produce such genes with the required high complexity with efficient high throughput, GENEART further advanced its synthesis procedures and established new production technologies last year. Overall, GENEART managed to completely revolutionize the gene synthesis over the previous years and lifted the production of gene sequences from a manual lab process to a highly industrialized level. A large number of biotechnology, pharmaceutical and chemical companies already profit from this advancement in the development of therapeutics, vaccines or the improvement of industrial enzymes.

Further information is available at http://videocast.nih.gov/Summary.asp?File=14665

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