PE Biosystems Prevails Over Amersham Pharmacia Biotech in Arbitration Proceedings

Business Wire, April 20, 1999

FOSTER CITY, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--April 20, 1999--

Perkin-Elmer (NYSE: PKN) announced today that its PE Biosystems business has prevailed over Amersham Pharmacia Biotech in an arbitration proceeding relating to Amersham's rights to certain PE Biosystems DNA sequencing technology.

The arbitration is part of a patent dispute between PE Biosystems and Amersham in which PE Biosystems is asserting that Amersham is infringing two of PE Biosystems' patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 4,811,218 and 5,207,886) relating to DNA sequencing instrumentation through Amersham's sale of its MegaBACE 1000 DNA Sequencing System.

Michael W. Hunkapiller, Ph.D., senior vice president of Perkin-Elmer and president of PE Biosystems, explained: "This arbitration was initiated by Amersham in an attempt to show that its MegaBACE system is licensed under the PE Biosystems patents through a license agreement between the two companies, thereby insulating the MegaBACE from PE Biosystems patent infringement claims. The award in favor of PE Biosystems reinforces that Amersham has no rights to the two patents under the subject license agreement. Accordingly, PE Biosystems will continue to vigorously prosecute its patent infringement action against Amersham."

The Perkin-Elmer Corporation currently comprises three operating divisions. The PE Biosystems Division, with sales of $922 million during fiscal 1998, supplies instrument systems, reagents, software, and related services to the life science industry and research community. The Analytical Instruments Division, which the Company has entered into an agreement to sell, had sales of $609 million during fiscal 1998 and is a leader in supplying a broad range of instruments to the pharmaceutical, environmental, food, chemical, petrochemical, and related industries. Celera Genomics, a newly formed business unit, intends to become the definitive source of genomic and related agricultural and medical information. Headquartered in Connecticut, Perkin-Elmer had revenues of more than $1.5 billion in fiscal 1998 and employs more than 7,000 people worldwide. Information about Perkin-Elmer is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.perkin-elmer.com or by phoning (800) 762-6923.