Invitrogen and Chroma Therapeutics Extend Kinase Screening Partnership

Business Wire, Feb 25, 2008

Kinase Drug Discovery Program Will Utilize Invitrogen's SelectScreen[TM] Platform

CARLSBAD, Calif. & ABINGDON, England -- Invitrogen Corporation (NASDAQ:IVGN), a provider of essential life science technologies for disease research and drug discovery, today announced an extension to its partnership with Chroma Therapeutics Ltd. As a part of this partnership, Invitrogen will use its SelectScreen[TM] platform to perform biochemical screening on Chroma's multi-targeted kinase inhibitors at Invitrogen's Paisley, Scotland, UK, facility. Financial details of the collaboration were not disclosed.

Invitrogen's SelectScreen[TM] profiling and screening service integrates industry-leading enzyme collections and cell-lines with state-of-the-art bioassay technologies to accelerate drug discovery programs. The SelectScreen[TM] collection of assays has been assembled to address therapeutically relevant targets, phylogenetic diversity and key signaling pathways, all of which are of interest to companies developing kinase inhibiting compounds. Invitrogen offers compound profiling services through laboratories located in Madison, Wisconsin, USA, and Paisley, Scotland.

"Our partnership with Chroma Therapeutics demonstrates the value they find in our kinase biology expertise, as well as the high quality data they receive with a very rapid turnaround," commented Nick Ecos, vice president and general manager of Invitrogen's Discovery Sciences business. "Time is essential to our collaborators and our locations in the US and UK are ideally located for a rapid turnaround."

"Invitrogen's SelectScreen service allows us to rapidly confirm the selectivity and potency of our small molecule drugs. We've been working with the company for over a year and are happy to continue the relationship," said Dr. Alan H. Drummond, CSO, Chroma Therapeutics. "Invitrogen's large panel of kinases allows us to determine whether our candidate drugs are inhibiting the appropriate kinases and how they interact with other kinases, enabling us to predict potential side effects or new indications. We have been especially pleased with the quality of the data we have received from Invitrogen as well as the strong customer service."

About Chroma Therapeutics Limited

Chroma Therapeutics, based in Oxford (UK), is a drug discovery and development company focused in the fields of oncology and inflammatory disorders. Chroma is building a broad pipeline of first- or best-in-class treatments utilizing its expertise in chromatin biology and its novel intracellular accumulation technologies, which include the ability to selectively target drugs to macrophages. Chroma is backed by a number of leading specialist investors, including Abingworth, Essex Woodlands, Gilde, Nomura Phase4 and The Wellcome Trust. More information about Chroma can be found at http://www.chromatherapeutics.com/.> About Invitrogen

Invitrogen Corporation (NASDAQ:IVGN) provides products and services that support academic and government research institutions and pharmaceutical and biotech companies worldwide in their efforts to improve the human condition. The company provides essential life science technologies for disease research, drug discovery, and commercial bioproduction. Invitrogen's own research and development efforts are focused on breakthrough innovation in all major areas of biological discovery including functional genomics, proteomics, stem cells, cell therapy and cell biology -- placing Invitrogen's products in nearly every major laboratory in the world. Founded in 1987, Invitrogen is headquartered in Carlsbad, California, and conducts business in more than 70 countries around the world. The company employs approximately 4,700 scientists and other professionals and had revenues of approximately $1.3 billion in 2007. For more information, visit www.invitrogen.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

Certain statements contained in this press release are considered "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and it is Invitrogen's intent that such statements be protected by the safe harbor created thereby. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those regarding: 1) Invitrogen will use its SelectScreen[TM] service to screen kinase inhibitors. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risks: a) the SelectScreen[TM] service may or may not accelerate drug discovery programs, or rapidly confirm selectivity, potency of small molecule drugs, or kinase activity; as well as other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in Invitrogen's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.