Althea Technologies Inc has been granted U.S. Patent number 6,618,679 covering its eXpress Profiling technology. The patent entitled, "Methods for Analysis of Gene Expression" represents the first to issue of a series of applications related to Althea's novel approach to high throughput gene expression analysis.

"We are very pleased to have been granted this patent," stated Dr. Joseph Monforte, Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Althea, and a key inventor of the eXpress Profiling technology. "We believe that eXpress Profiling offers a powerful and cost-effective technology for moving gene expression analysis to the next level of throughput, opening up new applications and new ways to perform drug discovery and development."

Althea's eXpress Profiling technology provides the means for monitoring tens to hundreds of genes using quantitative, highly multiplexed rtPCR. Because it is based on PCR, the method is able to measure very low level transcription events while working with only a few nanograms of total RNA. The method achieves a low cost per data point by using off-the-shelf reagents and is scalable using standard automation. Althea has also developed a suite of software tools for use with the method, easing multiplex design, LIMS and data analysis.

"We are very excited about the potential of our eXpress Profiling technology," emphasized Dr. Francois Ferre, Co-Founder/President/CEO of Althea. "During the last five years, the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries have been adopting high-density microarray technology as a standard procedure for drug research and development. This microarray research has been generating large volumes of data that is being analyzed in detail. One of the key aspects of this research is that in many cases the analysis of thousands of genes leads to the discovery of significantly smaller sets of genes, numbering a few to a few hundred, that provide the essential information about their biological systems.

"Our eXpress Profiling platform is poised to take advantage of these signature gene sets and provide a path for researchers to turn their microarray discoveries into in-depth, larger-scale studies. These studies include disease modeling, target discovery and validation, pharmacological screening, and toxicological screening, as well as clinical and diagnostic applications."