Inpharmatica's second major deal in Japan

Riken of Japan, the world's largest structural genomics research centre, has taken a non-exclusive subscription to Inpharmatica's Biopendium, the world's premier proteome annotation resource.

Inpharmatica secured this agreement in conjunction with its Japanese partner PharmaDesign, which is based in Tokyo. PharmaDesign will provide Riken with primary training and support over the period of the subscription.

Commenting on the announcement, Dr Mark Swindells, CSO at Inpharmatica, said: 'We are delighted to announce this agreement with Riken, which further strengthens our presence within the important Japanese market place. By prioritising proteins using Biopendium, Riken will benefit from consistently high quality annotation at a scale that compliments its already impressive capabilities in X-ray and NMR determination techniques.'

Professor Yokoyama, Director of the Riken initiative, further commented: 'It is very important to select the most scientifically interesting protein targets for structural and functional determination. We don't want to waste time determining structures that turn out to have limited value.

Inpharmatica's Biopendium is the best resource of its kind in this field and will be a valuable tool in achieving this objective since it is capable of providing quality annotation over more of the proteome than any other commercially available resource. We are very pleased to have concluded a license to this technology.'