Ion Channel Consortium Formed by Aurora Biomed, Alion Pharmaceuticals & Specs

Vancouver, British Columbia, February 14, 2012 -- Aurora Biomed Inc. is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with Alion Pharmaceuticals and Specs to form a new Ion Channel Consortium that will provide a novel, comprehensive solution for ion channel drug discovery. Together, the three companies will offer value added identification and validation of ion channel modulators. The Ion Channel Consortium combines Alion’s proprietary method for short-listing drug candidates, Specs’ reliable sourcing and synthesis of compounds, and Aurora’s superior patch clamp services. Researchers now have an option that enables time and cost savings while providing a unique method to identify new drug candidates for channelopathies.

About Aurora Biomed

Aurora Biomed is a global leader in the design and development of laboratory solutions for life science, environmental science, drug discovery/safety and chemical analysis research. We are committed to improving the quality of human and environmental health by providing technology and services which facilitate a higher sample throughput while improving quality, accuracy and precision. Aurora Biomed focuses on ion channel screening services for drug discovery and innovative high-throughput ion channel screening technology. Aurora’s proprietary ion channel readers enable the pharmaceutical industry to address drug safety issues earlier in the discovery process. Aurora Biomed provides contract research services for ion channels, channel forming proteins and toxins, creation and testing of mutant cDNA ion channels, and various ion channel cell lines.

About Specs

Specs is one of the world's leading suppliers of chemistry solutions for drug discovery to the Life Science industry. The main activities of Specs are focused on the supply of large numbers of high-quality screening compounds for High Throughput Screening (HTS), on-site and/or off-site compound handling, cheminformatics and contract research for lead discovery programs. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology and world-class expertise, Specs provides custom-tailored services and breakthrough solutions for the pharmaceutical, biotech and agrochemical industry worldwide, allowing the customers to concentrate on the development of their core (research) activities. Information about Specs can be found at www.specs.net

About Alion Pharmaceuticals

Alion has developed proprietary in silico technology to rapidly identify lead compounds to modulate certain ion channels and protein-protein interactions. The technology is applicable to designing small molecule leads for specific ion channels. Short-listed, high value compounds can then have their effect on ion channels characterized through limited experimentation. Alion’s technology is applicable to designing small molecule leads to a given macro-molecule target, where only the structure of a peptide (or protein) ligand is known.