UROsphere of France, a preclinical CRO that specialises in genito-urinary and kidney pathologies, will take part in the European Association of Urology's Annual Meeting, which will be held in Stockholm from 17 to 21 March 2009. It will also present its expertise to members of the Medicon Valley biotech cluster (in Sweden and Denmark) in March 2009.

UROsphere is a Contract Research Organisation (CRO) that is supported by a team of pharmacologists and physiologists. It provides the pharmaceutical and biotech industries with an experimental research platform intended to assess the therapeutic potential of drug candidates.

The company offers services (preclinical studies) to assess the efficacy of drug candidates with respect to lower urinary tract pathologies including urinary incontinence, urinary tract inflammations (such as interstitial cystitis and prostatitis), benign prostate hypertrophy and sexual dysfunction, as well as kidney pathologies (diabetic nephropathy and chronic renal failure, for example). It also carries out R&D activity to implement new protocols and experimental models.

UROsphere provides its customers with innovative in-vivo physiopathological models and in-vitro pharmacological models (screening and receptor characterisation), conducted upon a wide variety of animal and human tissues. The human tissues are obtained through a partnership network with French hospitals, in compliance with regulations and laws on bioethics.

Studies and protocols are customised in order to meet each client's needs and requirements. By involving its clients at every step of the process, UROsphere ensures that they get the responsiveness and flexibility needed to conduct each project.

Thanks to its scientific expertise and in-depth knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry, UROsphere provides its customers with high value-added consulting services and is able to offer expertise at various stages in drug development: the research phase (optimising leads or selecting the most active molecules); the preclinical development phase (preclinical proof of concept and full preclinical development plan); and the post-marketing phase, through participation during the life-cycle management.

About UROsphere

UROsphere, which is headquartered in Toulouse (in south-western France), was founded in 2004. It currently employs 15 staff (70% of whom have a PhD) and works with major international companies and pharmaceutical groups in the field of genito-urinary pathologies. The company also has a network of international scientific partners, which has enabled it to establish its expertise in the field.

UROsphere generates 80% of its turnover outside of France, 50% of which is realised within Europe. The company recorded a turnover of more than €1 million in 2007 - just three years after it was founded - an increase of over 90% on 2006.

UROsphere will take part in the Annual Meeting of the European Association of Urology, which will be held in Stockholm (Sweden) from 17 to 21 March 2009.

For further information, please go to: http://www.urosphere.com

Note

Copyright - FTPB is waiving its copyright on the content included in this press release, which means that recipients are free to reproduce, modify and circulate it if they wish to do so and as far as copyright law is concerned. If a given publication such as a trade magazine (to which FTPB subscribes) goes ahead and publishes an article on the basis of this press release, we would like to be informed so as to retrieve the published material, and so as to be able to send it to our client company/entity in France (i.e. the company/entity that provided us with the information contained in the press release in the first place). We keep a printed copy of the published material in the relevant file in our office, and a second copy may infrequently be kept in a press-book that may be shown to potential clients when they visit FTPB's offices. Other than that, a single scanned copy is sent electronically to the client/entity in France (or, more rarely, a single printed copy is sent by post). This is important to us and to our clients. By reproducing material/content that FTPB sends to a given publication, the recipient (i.e. the publisher and/or editor) is deemed to have agreed to the limited and legitimate use of the published material - in return and in due course - by FTPB, as described above. If the recipient of this press release objects to the potential limited re-use of his (her) published material by FTPB (as outlined above) in the name of his (her) copyright, the said recipient should inform FTPB as soon as possible, and the director of the press bureau will contact the publication concerned by return of email (contact.ftpb@ubifrance.fr), which will be followed up with a telephone call and/or a letter in order to try to find a compromise that would be acceptable to both parties. FTPB seeks to comply fully and actively with copyright law in all its aspects within the United Kingdom and as per European Union laws and regulations.

Embedded images - For journalists and editors who need the pictures embedded in an FTPB press release, it is very easy to retrieve them. What you need to do is as follows: within the body of the press release, left-click on the picture; this should magnify the image to a size that is directly usable; then, right-click on the magnified picture and choose the 'Save As' function; finally, save the magnified image as a JPEG file on the hard disk of your computer, giving it the name that you wish to use in connection with the story concerned. If you have any problems with this procedure, do not hesitate to give us a ring. It is always possible for FTPB to send you JPEG pictures as attachments in an email upon request. Thank you.

Reader responses - Please advise us of publication of this press release and continue to send reader responses to FTPB. This is the only way we can ensure the follow-up is done efficiently.

UROsphere