BIOBASE to Coordinate EU-backed Project to Develop Technology for Studying Mechanisms of Disease

BIOBASE, a leading provider of knowledge solutions for the life
sciences industry, announced today that they have received a European
Union research contract to develop innovative technology to analyze
complex disease mechanisms. The three-year, 3 million Euro project,
called Net2Drug, will be coordinated by BIOBASE and developed as a
collaboration with several international participants. The project's
goal is to create a sophisticated "toolbox" integrating cutting edge
bioinformatics, chemoinformatics, and experimental methods to identify
potential therapeutic targets.

"Understanding the mechanism of disease is the key to
rationalizing drug development. Net2Drug will provide a
knowledge-based approach for identifying critical components in the
gene regulatory network that accounts for a specific disease,"
explains Prof. Edgar Wingender, President and CSO of BIOBASE, "This
approach will enable researchers to confidently select promising drug
targets and efficiently identify chemical compounds directed against
these targets".

Dr. Alexander Kel, Senior Vice President Research & Development at
BIOBASE and project coordinator adds: "Net2Drug will integrate
different 'omics' datasets such as proteomics and genomics into
cohesive networks to facilitate comprehensive understanding of complex
human pathologies. Proof-of-concept will be given by applying our
technology on certain tumor types, in particular breast cancer."

The International Net2Drug Consortium

The Net2Drug consortium includes BIOBASE GmbH (Germany) as
coordinator, Progenika Biopharma S.L. (Spain), University of Helsinki
(Finland), Fraunhofer Institute fur Toxikologie und Experimentelle
Medizin (Germany), University of Gottingen/Medical School (Germany),
Institute of Systems Biology, Ltd, Novosibirsk (Russia), Institute of
Biomedical Chemistry of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow
(Russia) Microbiology and Tumor Biology Center (MTC), Karolinska
Institute (Sweden), and the CNR-ITB Institute of Biomedical
Technologies (Italy).

The European Union's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6)

Life Sciences, Genomics and Biotechnology for Health is one of
seven top priorities of the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme
(FP6). The FP6 objective is to help Europe take advantage of
unprecedented opportunities for generating new knowledge and
translating it into applications that enhance human health. To this
end, fundamental and applied research is supported, with an emphasis
on integrated, multidisciplinary, and coordinated efforts addressing
the present fragmentation of European research and increase the
competitiveness of the European biotechnology industry.

The indicative budget is EUR 2514 million for the period
2002-2006, including up to EUR 475 million for cancer-related
research.

About BIOBASE GmbH

BIOBASE (www.biobase-international.com), based in Wolfenbuttel
(Germany), with branch offices in Beverly, MA (USA) and Bangalore
(India) is the leading provider of expertly-curated biological
databases and sophisticated software tools. The BIOBASE Knowledge
Library includes but is not limited to the TRANSFAC(R), TRANSPATH(R),
YPD(TM) and HumanPSD(TM) databases. In combination, the systems
biology analysis platform ExPlain(TM) offers the identification of
molecular networks and key molecules critical to discovery research.
BIOBASE also provides a growing portfolio of databases of third
parties such as BRENDA(R) and HGMD(R). Our customers include the
leading academic and research institutions around the world. For more
information, please visit our website at
www.biobase-international.com.