Press Release

3rd Millennium Announces Completion of Custom Bioinformatics System for Biogen

CAMBRIDGE, MA - November 27, 2001 -- 3rd Millennium, a leading bioinformatics consultancy based in Cambridge, MA, announced today the completion of a custom bioinformatics system for Biogen, Inc. The engagement involved the design and development of a laboratory information management system (LIMS) to support the unique needs of Biogen's core gene expression facility.

The proprietary system developed by 3rd Millennium provides the full suite of standard LIMS functionality along with capabilities to support the unique integration, workflow, and analysis needs of Biogen's researchers. "We looked at the product alternatives available to us and found that none of them sufficiently addressed our critical requirements,” said Rainer Fuchs Ph.D., Biogen's senior director of research informatics. "We chose 3rd Millennium because they have the right combination of scientific and technical expertise to specify, design, and develop systems in this domain. We are very pleased with the system they developed which, importantly, they delivered on time and on budget. We expect the system to make an important contribution to our research objectives with respect to gene expression analysis.”

"Working with Biogen on this project is both an honor and a pleasure for 3rd Millennium,” said the president of the company, Richard Dweck. "Each project, due to the nature of our business of developing custom bioinformatics systems, presents new and unique challenges. With Biogen, our team had the opportunity to work with outstanding people and an outstanding organization while contributing our substantial expertise in the important area of gene expression profiling.”

About Biogen, Inc.
Biogen, Inc., winner of the U.S. National Medal of Technology, is a biopharmaceutical company principally engaged in discovering and developing drugs for human healthcare through genetic engineering. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, the Company's revenues are generated from international sales of AVONEX­ (Interferon beta-1a) for treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis, and from the worldwide sales by licensees of a number of products, including alpha interferon and hepatitis B vaccines and diagnostic products. Biogen's research and development activities are focused on novel products to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, neurological diseases, cancer, fibrosis and congestive heart failure. The Company maintains active clinical research programs in protein therapeutics, small molecules, genomics and gene therapy. For additional information about the Company, consult Biogen's Homepage at http://www.biogen.com.

About 3rd Millennium, Inc.
3rd Millennium, Inc., located in Cambridge, MA is a leading bioinformatics consultancy that works with pharmaceutical, biotech, and academic clients on a project basis to design and develop software systems critical to early stage biological research and discovery. 3rd Millennium's expertise is in custom biological database applications, microarray informatics and analytics, and data and analysis integration. The company has extensive experience developing systems for laboratory information management, microarray-based gene expression profiling, gene analysis and annotation, genomic and proteomic data integration and versioning, and biological pathway modeling. Additional information can be found at http://www.3rdmill.com.