Allowance of US Patent on Isobaric Tandem Mass Tags & TMT® Launch at ASMS

12th June 2008

COBHAM, England – Proteome Sciences plc ("Proteome Sciences") is pleased to announce that the USPTO has issued a Notice of Allowance for its US patent application in isobaric mass labelling for its tandem mass tags (TMT®) entitled "Mass Labels" Serial No. 10/489/341 (TMT2). The Notice of Allowance completes the final stage of patent examination and represents the form in which the patent will be granted. This follows grants of the corresponding cases in Europe, Australia and Canada. Issued patents are already granted for TMT1 in the USA, Europe and other main jurisdictions.

Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. launched a range of TMT® products at the ASMS mass spectrometry meeting in Denver, USA last week less than two months after obtaining the exclusive license for isobaric tandem mass tag technology from Proteome Sciences.

The high profile launch started with a well attended user meeting and was accompanied and endorsed by 8 scientific posters/papers presented by Proteome Sciences and a number of global scientific leaders in the field, confirming the utility and performance of TMT/isobaric mass tags across a broad range of different applications. These have been posted onto our website HYPERLINK "http://www.proteomics.com" www.proteomics.com.

Commenting on the US Notice of Allowance and the TMT® launch. Christopher Pearce, CEO of Proteome Sciences said:

"We are delighted to have received the Notice of Allowance for TMT2 in the US. The patenting process for TMT1 and TMT2 is largely complete in the major jurisdictions and we can look forward to seeing Thermo Fisher exploiting the considerable opportunities from isobaric mass tags to deliver rapid biomarker and assay solutions.

TMT® provides fast, flexible and cost effective workflows seamlessly from biomarker discovery, through validation to clinical development and will accelerate the utility and application of biomarkers in drug development and diagnostics to make personalised medicine a reality."