Pfenex Inc., announced today that Jerry Ngai, Scientist, will be a featured speaker at the 241st American Chemical Society (ACS) Meeting & Exposition. Ngai’s presentation will detail the utility of the Pfenex Expression Technology™ platform to rapidly establish production processes for proteins that cannot be expressed in other host systems.

In recent years, development of vaccines has attracted increasing attention, with the launch of several blockbuster vaccines. Threats of pandemics and bioterrorism, and the need to reduce healthcare costs, has resulted in increased interest in this area from government agencies. Previous efforts in producing a significant number of vaccine antigens and carrier proteins have resulted in improperly folded or truncated protein. Pfenex Inc. has built an expression platform that directly deals with these challenges resulting in a robust technology that can rapidly and cost effectively produce vaccine components.

“Unlike platform processes commonly used for monoclonal antibody expression and purification, the diversity of vaccine antigens requires fermentation and purification processes tailored to each protein.” Ngai explains. “Pfēnex Expression TechnologyTM employs a toolbox of defined strains containing custom-designed combinations of genetic elements, including a broad array of protease-deficient strains to minimize proteolytic degradation; resulting in high level expression of a broad variety of vaccine antigens/carriers. Pfenex routinely leverages the platform to solve purification challenges which ultimately results in a more efficient and hence cost effective production process.” Ngai will be sharing the details regarding the Pfēnex Expression TechnologyTM approach as well as case studies at the ACS conference.

Conference attendees are encourage to attend the session scheduled for Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 4:20pm as part of the Division of Biochemical Technology, down-stream processing track. The conference will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA and will feature a select group of speakers from academia and industry. For additional information please visit the Pfenex Inc. website.

About Pfenex Inc.
Pfenex Inc. is a protein production company leveraging the unique and powerful Pfenex Expression Technology™ platform based on the microorganism, Pseudomonas fluorescens, for the production of research proteins, reagent proteins, biosimilars and innovator biopharmaceuticals. For more information, please visit www.pfenex.com

About the American Chemical Society Meeting & Exposition
With more than 163,000 members, the American Chemical Society (ACS) is the world’s largest scientific society and one of the world’s leading sources of authoritative scientific information. A nonprofit organization, chartered by Congress, ACS is at the forefront of the evolving worldwide chemical enterprise and the premier professional home for chemists, chemical engineers and related professions around the globe.

Biochemical Technology (BIOT) is a division of the American Chemical Society. The mission of the division is to promote the exchange of information among academic and industrial researchers regarding technology utilizing life-based systems to produce useful products and services.

The 241st ACS National Meeting & Exposition is being held at the Anaheim Convention, March 27-31.

Hosted Solution will Improve Patient Outcomes, Research and Collaboration by Integrating Clinical and Molecular Data from Three Major National Health Service Trusts and Leading University

Guildford, UK, and Burlington, Mass., March 9, 2011 - IDBS, a global provider of innovative data management, analytics and modeling solutions, today announced that it will provide a unique, enterprise translational medicine platform for the Integrated Cancer Centre at King’s Health Partners. The Oncology Research Information System, (ORIS), designed at the Integrated Cancer Centre and developed and delivered by IDBS, will enable King’s Health Partners to develop targeted, personalized, cancer therapies according to the specific genetic and other characteristics of individual patients. This will improve the likelihood and number of successful treatment outcomes.

ORIS is the first of its kind: a single cross-organizational research platform that will bring together patient data for all King’s Health Partner’s cancer cases, accounting for a quarter of hospital beds in London. This comprehensive approach to cancer research has never before been able to be handled in one IT platform. ORIS will provide a unique translational medicine hub, handling the complex analytical demands of translational research and improving collaboration between the partners - King’s College London University, King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ and South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts.

IDBS, through the ORIS platform and associated organizational changes, will provide King’s Health Partners with:

• improved cancer treatment through secure knowledge sharing of patient outcome information;
• one secure searchable hub for clinical, diagnostic, pathological, sample, research and genomics centric information integrated from multiple sources;
• highly secure information governance and pseudonymization procedures to protect patient confidentiality;
• comprehensive scientific and statistical analytics to support requirements across research, teaching and clinical needs;
• reduced complexity with high security through scalable, flexible hosting and rigorous access control;
• powerful visualization of translational research data and an evaluation of data quality;
• an enhanced competitive position for attracting pharmaceutical and other research partners.

“Despite all the progress medical science has made, many cancer patients are still treated with protocols identified through a process of trial and error. Our aim is to change this through a targeted approach to cancer therapy, which will improve outcomes and patient quality of life,” said Professor Peter Parker, PhD, FRS, Head of the Division of Cancer Studies and R&D Lead for the Integrated Cancer Centre at King’s Health Partners. “Critical to this effort is a new collaboration between the different research and healthcare organizations involved and, above all, access to relevant data and analytics to enable our multi-disciplinary research teams to deliver outcome-based therapies.”

“During our extensive competitive tender process, IDBS clearly demonstrated a unique understanding of the complexities of translational medicine, core software provision and solution integration that we required for this program,” continued Professor Parker.

“IDBS understands that the improvement of patient outcomes will come from the successful delivery of targeted treatments, which requires a fundamental change in the approach healthcare organizations take to using increasingly complex research information and sharing of the clinical knowledge they generate,” said Neil Kipling, founder and CEO of IDBS. “Our broad understanding of the healthcare and pharmaceutical research sectors enables us to deliver the enabling technologies required to make the promise of personalized medicine a reality. The ORIS project further validates our strategy to design and build enterprise data management and analytics systems targeted at improving healthcare provision in the UK and worldwide.”

This is the first step in a five-year strategic relationship that could eventually expand to cover all disease areas including all oncology disorders and cardiovascular disease.

About King’s Health Partners
King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) is a pioneering collaboration between King’s College London, and Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts

King’s Health Partners is one of only five AHSCs in the UK and brings together an unrivalled range and depth of clinical and research expertise, spanning both physical and mental health. Our combined strengths will drive improvements in care for patients, allowing them to benefit from breakthroughs in medical science and receive leading edge treatment at the earliest possible opportunity.

For more information, visit www.kingshealthpartners.org

About IDBS
IDBS is a global provider of innovative enterprise data management, analytics and modeling solutions. The company’s uniquely sophisticated platform technologies are used by more than 200 pharmaceutical companies, major healthcare providers, global leaders in academic study, and high tech companies to increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve the productivity of industrial R&D and clinical research. IDBS is clearly differentiated by its unique combination of award-winning enterprise technologies and domain knowledge in R&D.

IDBS’ solutions help scientists, hospitals and R&D businesses produce the world’s newest therapeutics, diagnostics and personalized treatments, high-tech materials and consumer products, faster, cleaner engines and fuels, breakthroughs in productive agriculture, healthy, safer food products, and high tech materials and products.

Founded in 1989 and privately held, IDBS is headquartered in Guildford, UK with a direct sales and support presence worldwide. IDBS is a Profit Track 100 company and the recipient of multiple awards including the Frost and Sullivan ‘Enabling Technology’ Award in R&D data management for 2010. For regular updates follow us on Twitter @IDBSsoftware.

www.idbs.com

Mark Wiesman, president of DDN, a Dohmen company based in Menomonee Falls, Wis., is among six people newly elected to the BioForward board of directors. BioForward is a member-driven organization that represents Wisconsin’s bioscience industry and works with stakeholders ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies to policymakers to researchers.

Wiesman, who has been a member of BioForward for several years, will serve a three-year term on the board.

“We are enthusiastic about the expertise Mark will be able to offer our organization,” said Bryan Renk, Executive Director of BioForward. “His extensive background in working with life-science companies will be invaluable as the board collaborates on ideas to drive Wisconsin’s bioscience industry forward.”

“I am pleased to serve on the board with so many other experienced leaders in the industry,” Wiesman said. “BioForward understands what it takes to drive success and has the track record to prove it. I believe in its goal to position Wisconsin as a business-friendly state and as a leader in biosciences dedicated to attracting and retaining talent. BioForward members include bioscience companies, universities, non-profits, service providers, and state, regional and local government representatives.”

Wiesman continued: “The bioscience industry is incredibly important to Wisconsin. A BioForward study released late last year shows that nearly 24,000 private sector jobs have been created in bioscience, and the economic impact of the industry is nearly $7 billion. It also shows a 3 percent rise in employment in the bioscience industry between 2004 and 2009, compared to a 3 percent drop in employment elsewhere in Wisconsin during the same time frame. We want to continue to build on that success.”
Wiesman joined DDN in 2007 as Vice President of Finance and was quickly promoted to Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining DDN, Wiesman served as VP and General Manager for VPI, LLC, and held management positions for Ernst & Young. He earned a bachelor of science degree in accounting from Marquette University and a master’s degree in business administration from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

The other new members of the BioForward board are:

• Dave Bormett, Director of Operations and Site Director for SAFC, Inc., Madison 
• Mark Dahlby, JD, Global Regulatory Intelligence and Analysis Leader for GE Healthcare, Waukesha 
• Monika de Arruda Indig, Ph.D, Director of Clinical and Contract Operations for the Blood Center of Wisconsin, Milwaukee 
• Laura Heisler, Ph.D, Director of Programming for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Madison. 
• Dave Schlesinger, Director of Research Genotyping at Prevention Genetics, Marshfield.

About DDN
A subsidiary of the 153-year-old Dohmen Company, DDN is headquartered in Menomonee Falls, Wis., with distribution facilities located in Memphis, Tenn. and Ontario, Calif. DDN has become the largest privately held provider of outsourced channel management and business services to the life science industry by streamlining processes, reducing costs and improving efficiencies for emerging, mid-tier and market leading life science companies. By providing superior business processes and operations, DDN frees manufacturers’ resources for R&D, acquisition and other core initiatives. In 2009 DDN launched DDN Medical Affairs, providing specialized regulatory knowledge in preparing adverse event reports, labeling management, product complaints and medical and technical product inquiries. For more information please call 888-374-8873 or visit www.ddnnet.com.