May 6, 2011

Microbix announces proof-of-concept demonstration for LumiSort

Microbix Biosystems Inc., a biotechnology company commercialising novel technologies for livestock semen sexing and other innovative biologics, has achieved a major development step for LumiSortâ„¢, its semen sexing technology.

Microbix reports that LumiSort has now achieved early "proof-of-concept" for the key component of this cutting-edge technology. Further, the developmental analysis completed by Lathrop Engineering Inc., a leading Silicon Valley technology development company, has demonstrated that Microbix's technology may enable the analysis and separation of sperm cells up to 10 times faster, and with higher precision compared to current market technology. The technology is useful for all kinds of cells, including asymmetric, non-spherical cells like sperm that are difficult to analyse on conventional cytometers.

Supporting these results, Microbix has again broadened its aggressive intellectual property strategy to cover LumiSort's applications. The company is also reaffirming its product pipeline guidance and expects to launch LumiSort in the second half of 2012.

William J. Gastle, Microbix's chief executive officer said, "With today's proof-of-concept achievement and its demonstration of potential breakthrough cytometric attributes, LumiSort's upside could transform Microbix into a major technology development company with significant licensing revenues."

Robert Lathrop, founder and CEO of Lathrop Engineering, said, "We are pleased to join with Microbix in the development and engineering of their novel technology for sperm cell sorting and the general cytometry market. In our work to realise the concepts described in the intellectual property underlying the LumiSort device, we have been impressed by the simplicity and power of the approach. LumiSort addresses the historically difficult problem of sperm cell sorting in a new and innovative way, and we expect this discovery to result in significant gains in throughput and efficiency."

Microbix has established agreements for LumiSort with companies located in the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, South America, and China representing more than 35% of the dairy semen collection centres and will enter a global animal reproduction market for artificial insemination valued at more than CAD3 billion (US$3.09 billion). All agreements include the same royalty payment to Microbix of 15% of selling price. Now, within 18 months of launch, the company is accelerating its programme to sign license agreements with additional distributors.

In 2010, Microbix announced two partnerships including one with an engineering firm focused on the development of the technology and the other with one of the largest suppliers of livestock reproduction products in the world. The second firm has invested in the program through a milestone based, CAD2-million (US$2.06 million) investment, and will rapidly deploy LumiSort into their markets.