DoubleTwist, Inc. and Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT) today announced an exclusive distribution
agreement under which Hitachi has agreed to purchase licenses to the DoubleTwist suite of
bioinformatics software products, including DoubleTwist.com™ and Prophecy™ , for marketing
and distribution to the Asia-Pacific region.
Hitachi will host the DoubleTwist software at their facilities and provide bioinformatics
services to customers wishing to access the DoubleTwist products through a virtual private
network (VPN). Hitachi also offers enterprise information technology solutions that will
help pharmaceutical company purchasers of the DoubleTwist software to integrate those
products into their existing technology platforms.
"We are delighted to extend our existing distribution alliance with Hitachi to bring the
entire suite of DoubleTwist products to the Asia-Pacific Market," said Stephen Sanders,
VP Worldwide Sales for DoubleTwist, Inc.
"Our alliance with DoubleTwist provides us with a comprehensive suite of bioinformatics
products that allows us to become a market leader in the fast growing life science
industry in the Asia-Pacific region," said Dr. Hiroya Taguchi, Chief Executive Officer
of the Life Science Group at Hitachi, Ltd.
Under the agreement, Hitachi will become a distributor and value-added reseller for the
following DoubleTwist products:
•DoubleTwist.com™ - a powerful, secure and comprehensive online research
environment that integrates more than 25 disparate genomic databases and enables
users to analyze genomic information and store analysis results using Web-based tools.
•Prophecy™ - an extensively annotated database of human genomic DNA sequences
and software for data interpretation and visualization.
•GeneForest - a concise, annotated database of expressed sequences and software for
data interpretation and visualization.
•Clustering and Alignment Tools (CAT) - software product for processing and analyzing
large genetic sequence databases.
DoubleTwist, Inc. is a leading provider of genomic information and bioinformatics tools
to the life sciences industry. The Company's mission is to empower life scientists by
simplifying and accelerating genomic research. DoubleTwist.com provides an online
research environment that enables the life scientist to perform sophisticated genomic
analysis without requiring bioinformatics expertise. DoubleTwist's research environment
is accessible by subscription through DoubleTwist.com, as well as through licenses to
components of DoubleTwist.com's research environment for use on a customer's internal
computer network.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global
electronics companies, with fiscal 2000 (ended March 31, 2000) consolidated sales
of 8,001 billion yen ($75.5 billion). The company manufactures and markets a wide range
of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products and power and
industrial equipment. For more information on Hitachi, Ltd., please visit Hitachi's
Web site at URL:http://www.hitachi.co.jp.
For more information, contact DoubleTwist, Inc. at (510) 628-0100 or e-mail info-
pr@doubletwist.com or visit URL:http://www.doubletwist.com.
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