DoubleTwist Releases CAT v.4.0

DoubleTwist Inc announced the release of Version 4.0 of its Clustering and Alignment Tools (CAT), industry leading software that enables the rapid, accurate clustering and alignment of Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) within large databases of genomic information. DoubleTwist also announced that it had formed a distribution alliance with Hitachi Ltd of Japan granting Hitachi exclusive distribution rights to CAT for the year 2000 in the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia. Further, DoubleTwist has executed a memorandum of understanding to give Hitachi non- exclusive distribution rights through September 2000 for Prophecy -- the DoubleTwist annotated human genome database and associated software.

Hitachi Agreement

Hitachi will customize the DoubleTwist products with respect to the language of the Asian customers, and sell and support the product in the Asia-Pacific region.

Hitachi also offers enterprise information technology solutions that will help pharmaceutical company purchasers of the software integrate the products into their existing technology platforms. "This agreement represents a great opportunity for DoubleTwist to expand its markets internationally with a partner that is a global leader in the field of information technology," said Stephen Sanders, vice president of Worldwide Sales for DoubleTwist Inc.

"We are very pleased to become the exclusive distributor for DoubleTwist's industry-leading CAT software, which provides us with the opportunity to become a pioneer in offering cutting-edge bioinformatics solutions within the Asia-Pacific market," said Dr. Hiroya Taguchi, Chief Executive Officer of the Life Science Group at Hitachi Ltd.

CAT Version 4.0

DoubleTwist's CAT software enables users to rapidly and precisely cluster and align high volumes of EST's and partial gene sequences into full-length gene sequences suitable for gene indexing and other applications for drug discovery. The new Version 4.0 provides several advantages over early editions of this tool:

• Improved performance
• Integration of quality scores for base calls
• Output files in XML format
• Ability to incorporate genomic reference sequences
• Launch Web commands from within the CAT Viewer

In addition, users can seamlessly integrate CAT Version 4.0 with their use of the agent technology and other offerings available through the DoubleTwist.com Web portal.

Hitachi Ltd, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 1999 (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 www.hitachi.co.jp.

DoubleTwist Inc is an application service provider (ASP), devoted to empowering life scientists. The company provides research environments that leverage information technology and the World Wide Web to simplify and accelerate genomic discovery.

The company's Website, DoubleTwist.com, is an integrated genomics portal that provides a secure and comprehensive research environment and community on the Web. The site provides users with a number of benefits, including automated research agents, continuous database monitoring, access to proprietary data and data mining tools.

For more information, contact DoubleTwist Inc at 510-628-0100 or e-mail info-pr@doubletwist.com or visit www.doubletwist.com.