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BAXTER HEALTHCARE
CORPORATION AND NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCE NANOSCIENCE COLLABORATION
Deerfield, Ill.,
June 18, 2002 -- Baxter Healthcare Corporation and Northwestern University's
Institute for Bioengineering and Nanoscience in Advanced Medicine (IBNAM)
today announced an agreement to collaborate on early discovery projects
in nanoscience. Nanoscience is defined as the science of making, manipulating
and organizing objects 100,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human
hair. This field offers great promise for technological breakthroughs
in medicine, particularly in the way that therapies are targeted and administered
for the treatment of specific diseases.
As part of the agreement, Baxter will commit up to $450,000 per year over
the next five years to fund up to three post-doctoral researchers and
up to four annual research projects focused on sub-microscopic applications
with the potential for great impact on medicine. Northwestern will own
all intellectual property generated by the research projects, and Baxter
will receive a right of first refusal to exclusively license technologies
developed in projects sponsored by Baxter.
"Nanoscience and nanotechnologies hold incredible promise for medicine,"
explained Norbert Riedel, Baxter's chief scientific officer. "This
is an extension of our own work in the area of drug delivery and the design
of highly sophisticated devices to improve patient therapies and quality
of life. We look forward to working with our partner Northwestern University
and its Institute for Bioengineering and Nanoscience in Advanced Medicine
to develop new and more effective critical therapies for people with life-threatening
conditions."
"The collaboration between Baxter and IBNAM holds incredible possibilities,"
said Samuel I. Stupp, the Institute's director and the Board of Trustees
Professor of Materials Science, Chemistry, and Medicine at Northwestern
University. "It is clear that nanoscience has the potential to profoundly
enhance human health and revolutionize the way medicine is practiced.
The vision in creating IBNAM is to make Northwestern a key player in this
scientific and clinical transformation and we are proud to have Baxter
as a partner in this endeavor."
Northwestern University created the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanoscience
in Advanced Medicine in order to become a leader in bioengineering and
nanoscience by combining the expertise of three Northwestern schools --
the Medical School, the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
and the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
The Institute's goal is to promote interdisciplinary research and education
in biomedical science and engineering that will ultimately contribute
to the development of highly advanced (and, in some cases, currently unknown)
procedures in human medicine. This will be pursued by fostering discoveries
in frontier science and engineering that can be applied to advanced medicine,
particularly phenomena involving the nanoscale.
Through its drug delivery business, Baxter partners with global pharmaceutical
companies to develop, manufacture and cooperatively market intravenous
drugs in Baxter delivery systems. One area of expertise is in helping
drug companies solve solubility issues when attempting to deliver drugs
intravenously.
Baxter Healthcare Corporation is the principal domestic operating subsidiary
of Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX), a global health care company
that, through its subsidiaries, provides critical therapies for people
with life-threatening conditions. Baxter's bioscience, medication delivery
and renal products and services are used to treat patients with some of
the most challenging medical conditions, including cancer, hemophilia,
immune deficiencies, infectious diseases, kidney disease and trauma.
FOR ADDITIONAL
INFORMATION:
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- Media Contacts:
- Deborah Spak, 847-948-2349
George Rafeedie 847-948-3675
- Investor
Contacts:
- Neville Jeharajah,
847-948-2875
Mary Kay Ladone, 847-948-3371
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