Chromos Announces Expansion of Pfizer Collaboration

Chromos Molecular Systems Inc. has announced that it has expanded the scope of its collaboration agreement with Pfizer. Under the expanded agreement, Chromos will use its ACE System to develop a cell line for a Pfizer therapeutic protein product candidate. The parties will also initiate a collaborative program to genetically engineer production cell lines.

"Our relationship with Pfizer has been exceptionally productive as evidenced by their expanded commitment to the ACE System", said Alistair Duncan, President and CEO of Chromos.

"We look forward to continuing to work on multiple programs with Pfizer to take advantage of the unique features and significant benefits of the ACE System for cell line engineering."

Under the terms of the expanded agreement, Pfizer will provide funding to support the new programs.

Any product candidates produced using the ACE System that Pfizer elects to develop and commercialize will be subject to the terms of Pfizer's existing non-exclusive commercial license.

Chromos and Pfizer entered into an initial collaboration agreement in December 2004. In May 2005 Pfizer took a non-exclusive license to use the ACE System for research, development and manufacturing of its products.

Chromos' proprietary ACE System is a versatile chromosome-based gene delivery and expression platform with broad applications.

The ACE System is designed to allow genetic engineering of production cell lines with multiple genes in order to improve their performance in a bioreactor and potentially reduce the cost of producing therapeutic proteins such as monoclonal antibodies.