The 2005 Frost & Sullivan Business Development Strategy Leadership Award was conferred on SAS, in recognition of its well defined, growth strategies enabling it to become a leader in the global bioinformatics market. "SAS has made a considerable impact on the global bioinformatics market," noted Frost & Sullivan Healthcare Analyst, Raghavendra Chitta. "SAS' established, visionary and innovative teams in R&D, sales and marketing, combined with strong solution portfolios and definitive growth strategies, have set SAS in good stead." Today, most Fortune 500 Life Science companies benefit from SAS' core technology within R&D and other departments. The company has developed solutions to serve the drug discovery and development process. Pioneering software within scientific discovery include SAS Microarray, SAS Genetic Marker and SAS Proteomics and SAS Drug Development within the clinical arena.

The launch of the latest version of SAS' suite of bioinformatics solutions, the SAS Scientific Discovery Solutions, has given SAS the unique distinction of being the only company capable of offering end-to-end technology to drug companies, with SAS solutions in scientific discovery and clinical research through to commercialization and beyond.

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Labindia launches Microarray service facility
Labindia Instruments, a leading sales, services and support company to the life sciences industry, has launched a state-of-the-art microarray service facility at its Gurgaon Lab. This "Microarray Service Facility" is believed to be the first of its kind in India and is complete with Applied Biosystems Expression Array System Model 1700. Launching the facility, the director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research, Prof. NK Ganguly, said, "There is a need for many more such facilities. The companies should also look at training students in these facilities on a charged basis to generate quality manpower."

VS Upadhye, director, Labindia, said this service could be used by all pharmaceutical companies working in molecular biology or more specifically "Gene Expression Area" or by scientists from research institutes and also by funding agencies who could have a "proof-of-concept" before approving any particular project. The facility will offer the whole genome gene expression studies for human, rat and mouse systems. He further added that DNA Microarrays offer a powerful means of interrogating gene activity, which can monitor the whole genome on a single chip so that researchers can have a better picture of the interactions among thousands of genes simultaneously.

Established in 1982, Labindia was the top biosupplier and services company in 2004-05 in the BioSpectrum-ABLE Survey . It is an exclusive provider of the products and solutions of leading players like Applied Biosystems and Leica in India.

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Praj acquires global rights for ethanol fuel technology
Praj Industries Ltd, a leading ethanol supplier, has signed an agreement with Delta T Corporation, USA, for worldwide licence rights of the latter's molecular sieve (molsieve) dehydration technology for fuel ethanol production, on a non-exclusive basis. It may be recalled that in the Year 2001, Praj had entered into an agreement with Delta T for technology transfer licence of Molsieve based dehydration process in select territories. The 2005 transaction extends Praj's rights to molsieve-based dehydration technology for its use worldwide. "This is a move to consolidate Praj's global aspirations and enable Praj to penetrate growing developed markets, currently under exploration," said Pramod Chaudhari, chairman, Praj Industries.

... launches bionutrient for ethanol industry
In another development, Praj has announced that it has developed "MashTone", a new bionutrient for the ethanol industry. "MashTone is a nutrient formulation for alcohol fermentation that improves the fermentation performance resulting in high rate of yeast metabolism, healthy growth and improved yield. It is one more milestone in the biotech capabilities and in our commitment to customer care as this product enables distilleries to seek higher returns from their investments while strengthening after sales service," informed Chaudhari.