Corning's Epic system claims significant milestone in label-free HTS for drug development

June 12, 2008 -- Corning Inc. (Corning, NY, NYSE:GLW) has announced the completion of two independent high-throughput screens (HTS) believed to be the largest ever publicly announced label-free screens. Renowned scientists from two of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies each screened 100,000 drug candidates using using Corning's Epic system -- and thus achieved a major milestone in accelerating drug discovery using label-free technology.

"Our customers have demonstrated true high-throughput label-free screening – a goal that has eluded label-free researchers for many years," said Ron Verkleeren, Epic business director, Corning Incorporated. "Removing fluorescent, luminescent and radioactive labels from assays promises to improve the speed and quality of the drug discovery process," he continued. "It can open up a wider variety of drug targets and enable researchers to study drug candidates in more physiologically relevant systems. These screens exemplify the remarkable progress label-free technology has made in the last few years and the significant impact it can have in the future."

Data from both screens were presented at the Label Free Technologies in Drug Discovery Symposium hosted by the Society for Biomolecular Sciences this week in Dresden, Germany.

Corning's Epic system claims to be the world's first high-throughput label-free screening system. It uses patented optical biosensor technology to enable the study of a broad range of biochemical and cell-based targets. The system was launched in 2006 and has been deployed at customer sites in North America, Europe and Asia.