Moscow, Russia, 11th of July 2005 - ASINEX Ltd, a worldwide leader in lead generation and lead optimization announces the triggering of its first milestone payment as a part of a drug discovery collaboration with Biovitrum AB, a European Biotech company focusing on metabolic diseases R&D. ASINEX has achieved screening results which have met the set criteria of Biovitrum for an undisclosed GPCR target.

Biovitrum initially transferred one of its screening assays to ASINEX BioScreening Department, which was able to establish the assay at its laboratory in Moscow. ASINEX's Computational Department performed virtual screening of the in-stock database of more than 400,000 compounds and selected compounds for in-vitro screening, hit compounds were screened in functional assays.

'We believe this is a real step forward for ASINEX's BioScreening services. It also shows the capabilities we have as a provider of integrated services, having access to our high quality chemical libraries in combination with complementary services. The next step for us will be the expansion of our screening services into the area of early ADMET screening,' said Dmitry Genis, ASINEX's CEO. 'We are very pleased that our collaboration with Biovitrum has shown signs of early promise'.

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