Expanding applications for GenomeQuest™ sequence search and analysis software attracts financing from top tier biotechnology and healthcare IT venture capital firms

Worcester, Massachusetts - November 30, 2005 – Gene-IT, a provider of innovative sequence search software for the Life Sciences industry, today announced that it has secured a $4.1 million Series A financing. The financing was led by Cross Atlantic Partners and Milestone Venture Partners based in New York City with reinvestment by Paris based Société Générale Asset Management (SG AM) Alternative Investments. Gene-IT, committed to easy and accurate access to genomic information, plans to use the funds to expand sales and marketing programs aimed at discovery scientists and attorneys in major markets in North America and Europe.

The company’s flagship product, GenomeQuest is an easy-to-use Web-application that accepts text or sequence queries and renders results computed by a large-scale sequence comparison engine. The offering includes a service that continuously aggregates, indexes, and updates sequence data from dozens of surface and deep-web genomic data sources. GenomeQuest’s curation allows for the highest quality data in the shortest period of time that is available in the industry. The results are provided in a format designed to answer each user’s questions.

GenomeQuest was launched in January 2004 with adoption by the examiners at the European Patent Office. Since then, GenomeQuest has been adopted by more than 40 Life Science organizations including Chiron, Sanofi-Aventis, Monsanto, and most recently the examiners at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.

“GenomeQuest expands intelligent access to genomic information by linking sequence and text from disparate databases, said Sandra Panem Ph.D., General Partner of Cross Atlantic Partners. “Ease of use, speed, accuracy and the instant sharing of results allows research teams to do better science and make better business decisions – both are needed for success.

In 2006, Gene-IT will expand GenomeQuest to address emerging applications of sequence search in areas such as RNAi and diagnostics. “Gene-IT has focused on end-user needs to create GenomeQuest, said Todd Pietri, General Partner at Milestone Venture Partners. “Their architecture is designed for huge data sets. We believe that Gene-IT has the platform and the business model to meet the needs of genomic information consumers.

“Management has consistently executed on both technology and business, as recognized by our ability to attract top tier US investors, said Jean-Yves Nothias Ph.D., Managing Director Biotech Venture Capital of SG AM Alternative Investments. “With Cross Atlantic and Milestone joining the Board, the company is positioned to penetrate the large North American Life Science market.

Ronald Ranauro, CEO of Gene-IT, said, “The financing is a huge validation of our customers’ decision to select GenomeQuest for their sequence search applications and should signal the broader market that innovative solutions exist to increase productivity while driving down the cost of sequence relevant discovery research.