Accelr8 Announces Option Exercise to Continue BACcel™ Technology Evaluation, & Additional Presentations at Major Medical Me...

Accelr8 Technology Corporation (NYSE Amex: AXK) announced that it received notification by its industry collaborator of exercise of an option to continue its technology evaluation program for Accelr8’s BACcel™ rapid diagnostic system. As previously announced, the two companies have an agreement that contains the option to continue through June 30, 2011. The option exercise extends the exclusivity period for good faith negotiations of business terms for a definitive agreement on a formal business relationship. The extension period now encompasses milestones related to product development.

In addition, Accelr8 announced acceptance of two presentations for the 111th General Meeting of the American Association for Microbiology (ASM) to be held May 21-24 in New Orleans. One presentation, co-authored by investigators at the Denver Health Medical Center, will describe results on rapid quantitation, identification, and major antibiotic resistance expression of pathogens in ICU respiratory specimens. The study compared the accuracy and timing of results from Accelr8’s BACcel™ rapid system with those from standard clinical lab culture testing.

The second study, co-authored by investigators from Denver Health and the Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, will describe results of a rapid test to identify important new types of antibiotic resistance in “Staph” infections. One of the new mechanisms, named “hVISA,” cannot be detected by standard laboratory culture methods and presents a major new threat with multi-resistant Staph infections.

Prior studies have demonstrated the BACcel™ system’s ability to report pathogen identification within 2 hours after receiving a specimen, and drug resistance expression within a total of 6-8 hours. The BACcel™ system analyzes multiple organisms and multiple modes of drug resistance expression directly from a patient specimen. The short time to result contrasts with typical 3-day turnaround required for standard laboratory cultures.

According to David Howson, Accelr8’s president, “The option exercise reflects the rapid progress we’ve made in demonstrating practical technology to complete our instrument development, and the consistent results the BACcel achieves in collaborative studies. The two new presentations add to those we recently announced for two other meetings, with one in the US and one in Europe. The new presentations extend the findings in testing dangerous new types of resistance and in applying the BACcel directly to ICU patient specimens. It is particularly important to see that analyses of patient specimens produce results consistent with those from earlier laboratory studies under standardized conditions. The BACcel’s unprecedented ‘multi-bug’ and multi-drug capability, combined with its speed, sets it apart from other attempts to address the crisis of multi-resistant infections and the virtual absence of new antibiotic development.”

About Accelr8

Accelr8 Technology Corporation (www.accelr8.com) is a developer of innovative materials and instrumentation for advanced applications in medical instrumentation, basic research, drug discovery, and bio-detection. Accelr8 is developing a rapid analytical platform for infectious pathogens, the BACcel™ system, based on its innovative surface coatings, assay processing, and detection technologies. In addition, Accelr8 licenses certain of its proprietary technology for use in applications outside of Accelr8’s own products.

Certain statements in this news release may be “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Statements regarding future prospects and developments are based upon current expectations and involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from the forward-looking statement, including those detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Accelr8 does not undertake an obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or future events.