Immunicon Corporation And AstraZeneca UK Limited Enter Research And Master Services Agreements

HUNTINGDON VALLEY, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 7, 2006--Immunicon Corporation (NASDAQ-NM:IMMC - News) announced today that the Company entered into two separate agreements with AstraZeneca UK Limited. The Research Agreement establishes collaborations in three distinct scientific research projects related to the development of methodologies to identify and quantify certain cell types circulating in blood that are potentially valuable biomarkers for targeted therapies. Leon Terstappen, Chief Scientific Officer of Immunicon said, "We are very pleased to enter into these collaborations with AstraZeneca. We hope that the new assays that we plan to develop under the Research Agreement will help to accelerate AstraZeneca's therapy development by assessing the presence of their treatment targets and earlier determination of the effectiveness of these therapies." Donna Johnstone, Pre-clinical Director of Cancer Translational Medicine at AstraZeneca said, "The ability to molecularly characterize circulating tumor cells is a key advance in the era of targeted therapies. Our collaboration with Immunicon will significantly enhance our research base in this core area."