Gene Logic Inc. Guidance Announcement - Final.

Original Source: FD (FAIR DISCLOSURE) WIRE

OPERATOR: Today is Thursday, March 17, 2005 and welcome to the special Gene Logic conference call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Robert Burrows, Senior Director of Corporate Communications for Gene Logic. Mr. Burrows, you may begin your conference call.

ROBERT BURROWS, DIRECTOR, CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS, GENE LOGIC INC.: Thank you, Ann Marie. Good morning and thank you for joining us that this mornings conference call and webcast to discuss today's announcement regarding our 2005 financial guidance and strategy for future company growth. Providing prevar -- prepared comments during today's call will be Gene Logic's Chief Executive Officer and President, Mark D. Gessler. Other members of our Senior Management Team are present and will be available during the Q&A session on an as needed basis.

Before we however, I'm required to call your attention to the customary Safe Harbor Disclosures found in the press release today regarding forward-looking information. During today's conference call and webcast we may make various statements about the company's future expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the Safe Harbor pro -- provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially for Gene Logic from those projected. These risk factors are more fully discussed and we strongly urge you to review them in Gene Logic's annual report on Form 10K for the year ended December 31, 2004 which was filed just yesterday, March 16, 2005. Forward-looking statements are made as of today's date and we expressly disclaim any obligation to update this information on a going forward basis.

And with that introduction I will now turn it over to Mark to take you through the specifics of our financial guidance and strategic direction. Mark?

MARK GESSLER, PRESIDENT, CEO, DIRECTOR, GENE LOGIC INC.: Good morning and thank you for joining us. Clearly over the past two years we have not generating an acceptable return for our shareholders and are currently trading at about cash. We have however built a portfolio of technologies, genomic data bases and drug development expertise that is unique and becoming increasingly vital to our more than 100 pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers. Our challenge is to unlock this value so that our share price reflects the true potential of our company.

The purpose of today's call is to explain to you our strategy for doing so. It involves three elements. One, re-establishing double-digit revenue growth and achieving profitability in our genomics and preclinical contract research businesses. These have been our two primary businesses to date. Two, build an exciting new partnership business and drug repositioning with our pharmaceutical customers in which we own royalty and milestone positions in drugs we have in -- reintroduced into their development pipelines. And, three, to to articulate our plan for company-wide profitability in 2007. We expect our genomics and preclinical contract research businesses to contribute net cash flow to the overall company during 2007.

The technologies, database expertise and relationships with Big Pharma that we have built in our existing businesses are the underpinning for our ability to expand into drug development partnerships and drug repositioning with our customers. The value of Gene Logic will lie in our existing businesses showing double-digit revenue growth and achieving annual sales of over a hundred million in 2007. And generating positive cash flow. Also driving this value by 2007 we expect to have significant milestone and royalty positions in a portfolio of drug assets under development for our drug repositioning program.

Over the past several quarters we made significant changes to our management team, restructured our organization and developed or acquired new technologies that will enable to us execute on the elements of our strategy. It has been a long but carefully thought out process and we believe now we are standing at the threshold of bringing our long-term plan to fruition.

Let's start with our Genomics Business which includes Toxicogenomics. Dennis Rossi, the General Manager for this business is an experienced life science executive he joined us in September of 2004 and has been spearheading our plan to reinvigorate the business. The marketplace knows us best for the world's leading genomic database but we are much more than that. Building on this strong foundation we are dramatically re -- transforming this part of the company into a drug development solutions provider.

We now offer a portfolio of software tools, professional services, data generation and analysis services in addition to our data basis. We feel strongly that these additions will strengthen our leadership position in the marketplace, create an increased demand for our full range of solutions and extend our reach to new accounts and new markets. Today the Genomic's portfolio includes the following products and services. Our industry leading reference databases in genomics and toxicogenomics which is the foundation for our BioExpress and ToxExpress systems. Our Enterprise Software Systems such as recent Genesis 2.5 release, organizing, mining, visualizing, analyzing GeneExpression and associated clinical data. And our Web-based Software Systems such as the newly launched ToxShield and Ascenta …