PRESS RELEASE

November 12, 2011 - Recently, MSI received confirmation from the National Institute of Health (NIH) National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of a $2.3M SBIR Phase II Award to support the creation of an advanced pharmaceutical research platform, based upon the company’s proprietary Back-Scattering Interferometry (BSI) molecular interaction assay technology. This award represents acontinuation of work supported by a $200K NIGMS SBIR Phase I award issued in 2010.

Molecular interactions form the basis of healthy metabolism as well as the manifestation of disease, and comprise the very foundation of drug treatment. Tools available to study the interaction of drug candidates and their targets under nascent physiological conditions are significantly limited. Current products fall short of addressing the demands to accelerate drug discovery and development for cell membrane protein targets. Membrane proteins, which make up about 1/3 of the human proteome, interact with a wide range of biologically relevant species. A specific class of membrane proteins known as G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) is of particular interest, as they represent the principle drug target for about 40% of all prescription pharmaceuticals and over half of the top one hundred best selling drugs. Currently, there does not exist a practical, direct means to study GPCR – drug binding interactions as they proceed in their native environment. Consequently, current tools significantly under-serve a major drug discovery need, and as such, there exists a profound requirement for a new product to address research demands in the all-important membrane target field.

MSI’s Phase II SBIR program is directed towards producing a unique and disruptively enabling BSI instrument for use in drug research. In addition to refining our technology, under Phase II the company will demonstrate the unique strengths and capabilities of BSI to significantly advance progress in the all-important area of membrane protein drug research by capitalizing on collaborations with three world-class research environments: The Groves Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley, the Finn Laboratory of Scripps Research Institute and the Bornhop Laboratory at Vanderbilt University.

The culmination of our SBIR program will result in the creation of new products, which the company will sell to its early access customers in pharmaceutical research and academic drug discovery markets. The company predicts that these new products will be rapidly adopted as the new paradigm for membrane protein target drug research, and fuel company growth.

Molecular Sensing, Inc. is a development stage biotechnology company, located in the San Francisco Bay area, dedicated to the commercialization of BSI molecular interaction instrumentation, services and applications that enable label-free in vitro biochemical and cell-based molecular interaction assays using kinetic and quantitative end-point analysis.

MSI’s Life Science Early Access Program (LEAP) is a fee-based early access program designed to provide customized collaboration partnerships with major laboratories in basic life sciences and/or translational research, clinical diagnostics, and pharmaceutical R&D. LEAP collaborations are intended to help MSI develop and validate enabling applications as well as to advance the development of its instrumentation.

Molecular Sensing, Inc. Contacts:
LEAP Partnerships: LEAP@molsense.wpengine.com Investors: William E Rich, +1-510-673-9010, werich@molsense.wpengine.com