Spotfire Announces Spotfire Expression Explorer 1.0 for Gene Expression Analysis

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (March 2) BUSINESS WIRE -March 2, 1999--

Enables Immediate Visual Analysis of Gene Expression Data

        from GATC-Compliant Databases and Clustering of 

Gene Expression Profiles

Spotfire, Inc., the leading provider of software solutions for research and development decision support, today announced the release of Spotfire Expression Explorer 1.0. Spotfire Expression Explorer (SEE) is the third scientific component the company has developed to help users of its desktop software application, Spotfire Pro, easily access and analyze databases of specialized chemical and biological information. SEE is designed to tap into genomics databases compliant with standards established by the Genetic Analysis Technology Consortium(tm) (GATC) as well as data in standard Oracle databases.

Spotfire Expression Explorer enables scientists to instantly search GATC-compliant databases for gene expression data or information on selected experiments. It then automatically clusters genes with similar traits or patterns of co-regulation over time for closer examination by researchers. Spotfire Pro displays this information in an easy-to-understand format and allows researchers to further interrogate the data. Together, Spotfire Pro and Spotfire Expression Explorer help researchers more effectively study relationships between gene regulation, enabling them to quickly build hypotheses about the genes and potentially their relationship to disease.

"The addition of the Spotfire Expression Explorer component to Spotfire Pro will be a great aid to benchtop scientists working with multiple and varied databases," said Greg Tucker-Kellogg, Ph.D., Staff Scientist, Genetics Institute, Inc. (a research unit of Wyeth-Ayerst). "Because the genomics data can be so voluminous, it's sometimes difficult for scientists to manipulate the data to find the information they need on important patterns and relationships in the gene expression profiles. Spotfire Expression Explorer enables researchers to immediately manipulate data and encourages imaginative ways of thinking about and exploring the results."

"Spotfire Pro is already in use at more than fifty life sciences companies supporting a wide variety of drug discovery applications," said Dr. Christopher Ahlberg, Founder and CEO of Spotfire, Inc. "Spotfire Expression Explorer extends the capabilities of Spotfire Pro to tap into the databases created by popular DNA array technologies from such companies as Affymetrix and Molecular Dynamics. By helping scientists engaged in genomics research better understand the complex relationships between certain genes, Spotfire Expression Explorer can help them identify avenues for research into potential new therapeutics." About the Genetic Analysis Technology Consortium

Affymetrix, Inc., and Molecular Dynamics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, founded the GATC in 1997 to standardize the field of array-based genetic analysis. The goal of the consortium is to provide a technology platform to design, process, read and analyze genetic information from DNA arrays.

"We are very pleased that Spotfire has incorporated the GATC standards into their technology platform with the Expression Explorer component of Spotfire Pro," said John Sowatsky, Director of Software Development from Affymetrix. "Spotfire's development and promotion of open, integrated data exploration software demonstrates its commitment to the efforts of the GATC in creating a unified technology platform." Spotfire, Inc.

Spotfire, Inc., is the premier supplier of research and development decision support solutions to the life and material sciences industries. Spotfire Pro is uniquely able to graphically display large amounts of disparate data generated by drug discovery applications. Additional Spotfire software enables scientists and alliance partners to collaborate via the Web and empowers them to make sound decisions about the direction of future research. Spotfire currently supports high-performance drug discovery at 20 of the top 22 pharmaceutical companies. The company maintains European headquarters in Goteborg, Sweden, and U.S. headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.

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CONTACT: Spotfire, Inc.            Schwartz Communications, Inc. 
          Michael Blaisdell         Laura Kempke 

617 621.0340 x 200        781 684.0770 
          michael@spotfire.com      laurak@schwartz-pr.com 

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