Integrated Genomics, Inc., a leader in microbial genomic informatics, has licensed the ERGO™ genomics platform for use in research and production systems to Evonik Industries, a global leader in specialty chemicals. Under the terms of the agreement, scientists of the Evonik Science-to-Business Center Biotechnology will use the ERGO™ system to optimize their production strains and find new methods for high yield production of specialty chemicals.

Integrated Genomics ERGO™ platform is the leading genomic tool for microbial systems biology.

“We have found the ERGO™ discovery system to be an exceptionally useful tool for our metabolic engineering projects and expect that it will assist us in developing new production strains for higher and more cost effective production of biological compounds ”, said Dr. Thomas Haas, Director Science-to-Business Center Biotechnology at Evonik.

Optimized for analysis of microorganisms, ERGO™ integrates biological data from genomics, biochemistry, gene expression studies, genetics and literature. Reaching beyond conventional systems for functional analysis by DNA sequence alone, Integrated Genomics' platform combines pattern-based analyses with a repertoire of comparative genomics tools for gene visualization in the contexts of regulation, expression data, phylogeny, chromosomal neighborhoods and gene fusions. ERGO™ contains more than 1500 genomes at various stages of completion, as well as the largest available collection of networked cellular pathways.

About Integrated Genomics

Integrated Genomics (www.integratedgenomics.com) is a provider of bioinformatics products and services for the life sciences industry. The company’s expertise in microbial genomics includes genome sequencing, comparative genomics, custom bioinformatics applications and microbial metabolic engineering. IG has developed and distributes ERGO™, the most advanced and comprehensive bioinformatics suite for microbial genomics on the market. ERGO™ contains the largest available integration of microbial genome data, including genome-derived metabolic reconstructions representing over 6,000 networked metabolic and non-metabolic pathways.

About Evonik Industries AG

Evonik Industries (www.evonik.com) is the creative industrial group from Germany which operates in three business areas: Chemicals, Energy and Real Estate. Evonik is a global leader in specialty chemicals, an expert in power generation from hard coal and renewable energies, and one of the largest private residential real estate companies in Germany. Our strengths are creativity, specialization, continuous self-renewal, and reliability. Evonik is active in over 100 countries around the world. In its fiscal year 2007 about 43,000 employees generated sales of about €14.4 billion and an operating profit (EBITDA) of more than €2.2 billion.