BioTechPlex Corporation receives its 4th Phase II SBIR Grant Award from NIH

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - July 08, 2003

Elk Grove Village, IL, July 1st 2003
BioTechPlex Corporation, is pleased to announce the award of a $750,000 Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, a unit of the NIH. The grant, entitled "TRANS-MEMBRANE WATER AND ION MEASUREMENT SYSTEM (TWIMS)", will fund the development of a practical system to measure minute fluxes of water that traverses biological membranes in conjunction with the cellular electrochemical processes essential to life.

The maintenance of homeostatic water transport across cellular membranes is fundamental to life. Abnormalities in trans-membrane water transport leads to diseases in multiple organs and tissues, including the lungs, intestine, kidney, eyes, and brain. Yet the mechanisms by which water is transported across biological membranes are still poorly understood. TWIMS is a novel system with the ability to provide the data necessary to discovering the mechanisms underlying transcellular water transport and how such transport is altered in disease. The TWIMS system will thus enable the discovery of new treatments for such water transport-related diseases.

BioTechPlex Corporation's mission is to improve the treatment of disease through the creation of novel devices for medical research, diagnosis and discovery of pharmaceuticals. Since its inception in 1998, BioTechPlex has been awarded over $4.3 million in NIH SBIR (8 Phase I and 4 Phase II) and Illinois State grants. The company has strategically leveraged these grants with institutional collaborations and revenues to continuously increase its R&D investment and fill its product pipeline without incurring substantial debt or diluting equity. This innovative business model has facilitated the company's sustained growth and has led to the development of multiple product lines.

BioTechPlex Corporation is currently marketing CardioDataPadä, the first real-time heart rate variability analysis system that can non-invasively analyze the beat-by-beat changes in autonomic control of cardiac rhythm. This novel system has wide-ranging diagnostic and prognostic potential in cardiac, respiratory, neurological, endocrinological and metabolic diseases. BioTechPlex is also developing a cell-based high-throughput screening system that will enable pharmaceutical companies to screen their compound libraries and identify viable potential drug candidates. This endeavor is supported by the production of proprietary mammalian cell lines as well as the provision of measurement systems for assessing cell motility and signal transduction. In addition, BioTechPlex is developing devices for generating, concentrating, and characterizing solid and liquid aerosols as well as platforms for conducting small animal respiratory exposure studies. These innovations will arm scientists, researchers, and physicians with a whole new set of tools and enabling technologies to aid the discovery of new cures and better treatment modalities for such diseases as asthma, bronchitis, COPD and cystic fibrosis.