OmniViz, a wholly owned subsidiary of Battelle, will develop cutting-edge information visualization and data mining products to meet the needs of BASF Plant Science and the broader chemical and life sciences market.

OmniViz, incorporated in March, will utilize Battelle's innovative OmniViz Pro™ software to address the challenge of converting large amounts of data into knowledge and competitive advantage.

OmniViz Pro is the only technology that allows the user to analyze text, numerical, categorical and genomic sequence data in an integrated manner. A biotechnology company such as BASF Plant Science could realize tremendous value through its application in areas such as gene expression, metabolism and high-throughput screening data analysis.

BASF Plant Sciences Holding was created in March to house all of BASF's plant biotechnology activities and has aggressive growth plans for the next ten years.

"We intend to become one of the major players in plant biotechnology," said BASF Plant Science Managing Director Reiner Emrich. "We recognize the vital role information visualization and data mining plays in the achievement of this vision and have chosen Battelle's OmniViz as one of our first alliance partners because of the quality of their technology and people. Working with OmniViz is an important step in our strategy to be one of the leading companies in functional genomics."

"We are delighted to have BASF Plant Science as a long-term collaborator," said Ben Maiden, acting CEO of OmniViz. "They have shown that they fully intend to take all the necessary steps to achieve market leadership and we're confident we can play a major role in the fulfillment of that plan."

This marks the second significant collaboration for OmniViz. In March the company announced a collaboration with the R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute and Janssen Research Foundation-Johnson & Johnson companies.

"Having alliances in both the pharmaceutical and plant biotechnology areas allows us to develop a set of products to meet the information visualization and data mining needs of the broader chemical and life sciences industries," Maiden said. "Companies in these industries are increasingly recognizing the tremendous value that can be extracted through the mining of large data sets. The winners will be those companies that can quickly transform raw data into sources of high-value information."

BASF Plant Science GmbH is the global technology platform, in which BASF (holding 85 percent) and its Swedish seed partner Svalof Weibull (15 percent) pool all research operations in the field of plant biotechnology. It is made up of research and development organizations around the world including BASF Plant Science L.L.C in Research Triangle Park, NC USA; Metanomics and SunGene in Germany; DNA Landmarks in Canada and two research companies in Sweden.

BASF Plant Science has committed more than 700 million Euros over the next 10 years to aggressively develop its global biotechnology capabilities and create breakthroughs that improve the supply of high quality nutrition for the world's expanding population. BASF is one of the world's top chemical companies generating long-term growth and profitability from its activities in chemicals, health and nutrition, and oil and gas.

For more information, contact Bob Quinn at (614) 424-7755 or Media Relations Manager, Katy Delaney at (614) 424-5544, or visit www.omniviz.com.

Battelle, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, focuses on technology development and commercialization and product development. With 7,500 employees at more than 60 locations, Battelle develops technologies and products for industry and government. Annual revenues are approximately $1 billion. For more information on Battelle and its technology forecasts, visit Battelle's web site at www.battelle.org, or contact Katy Delaney, Media Relations manager, (614) 424-5544.