As a new year dawns and seems to quickly slip by as 2005 did for Ocimum, I thought I would take a few moments to pen down some achievements we had over the year. We started the year by acquiring microarray assets of MWG Biotech. This acquisition has helped us gain a foothold in the microarray market. The MWG array has been christened “OciChip™” and we have not looked back since then. Our R&D team is working hard to provide our customers the newest and the most updated arrays and annotations. With our strong BioIT team, we have been able to provide our customers with “solutions” rather than products or services.

Our “new chip on the block”, the “Rat 30K OciChip™” has become a hit with researchers and we hope to introduce newer arrays in 2006.  Our contract research services got a big boost as we added certifications and newer services. Our lab has been certified by Dow AgroSciences LLC for testing Herculex™. We introduced a range of new services such as DNA walking, Gene design and Synthesis, Oligo Synthesis, DNA sequencing, SNP discovery and detection services. With these services, we can now offer complete genomic outsourced solutions to our customers.

We also got noticed by several institutions and companies this year. Ocimum was chosen by NASSCOM as one of the most innovative companies and we secured a fantastic rank in the Fast 500 and Fast 50 held by Deloitte. Our customer base has now spread all over the globe as our customers spread the good word about us. I take this opportunity to thank all of Ocimum's customers who have helped us grow to this stage and we are confident that we will continue doing so in the coming year. Thank you for your confidence in us.

In 2006, we promise to bring our customers, not just the best in products and solutions but also keep up our tradition of superb customer relations. With a 24/5 live support and personalized attention being given to each customer, we take pride in being extremely meticulous about ensuring that our customers and partners are happy and continue to associate with us for their R&D needs.

Look forward to doing business with you in 2006 and forever.

Genowiz™, our microarray data analysis package has released version 3.1. This version comes with several improved features like support for Affymetrix raw data files (.CDF, .CHP, .CEL) using advanced probe level algorithms like MAS 5.0 and RMA . User can view NetAffx™ annotations and can even update them. Features like Merge Clusters, One Sample t-test, Annotation Views, URL Editor, Search operation on gene ontology and pathways, Support for Regulatory, Signal Transduction and Disease pathways and SVM assist researchers successfully in extracting biological significance out of the expression data.

Ocimum Biosolutions has been ranked 55th amidst the 500 fastest growing technology companies of repute across the Asia-Pacific region by the world-renowned Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia-Pacific 2005 Program. More...

In recognition of Ocimum's innovative ideas and products, NASSCOM - the premier trade body and 'voice' of the IT software and service industry in India, has shortlisted Ocimum Biosolutions for IT Innovation in India Award 2005. More...

• How to fix the 'Out of memory error' reported by Genowiz™
• How to resolve the error message "Unable to connect 'localhost' at '3310'" reported by Genowiz™
• How to add more sequences to the existing Local Blast Database in Genchek™?

Ocimum has added a few more names in the list of its prestigious clients in last quarter. Some of them are

• Plant Sciences Department, University of Arizona, USA.

• Department of Biology, New York University, USA.

• National Microarray & Gene Expression Analysis Core Facility of the National Research Program for Genomic Medicine, Yang Ming University (YMU), Taiwan.

• Geno-Type Biotechnology, Athens, Greece.

• Universitätsklinik Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany.

Visit us at Booth no. 61 on all days of this event to be held from February 9-11, 2006 at HITEX fair grounds, Hyderabad, India.
Anuradha Acharya, founder & CEO, Ocimum Biosolutions shall chair the session "Opportunities in Bio-IT" to be held on February 10, 2006.

Meet us at Booth No. 2763, at the BIO 2006 Chicago Annual International Convention in Chicago, during April 09-12, 2006.

Ocimum Biosolutions will participate in ii2006, the industry's premier summit on Innovation and Knowledge management which shall be held at The Wigwam Resort and Golf Club, Phoenix, Arizona from April 10-13, 2006.
Dr. Ross Rabin, Product Manager, Bioinformatics & Research Services, Ocimum Biosolutuions, shall give a talk "Biotracker: Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) for the 21st Century" on April 12, 2006.