FOSTER CITY, CA - August 29, 2000 - Axon Instruments, Inc., (ASX: AXN) a developer of instrumentation and software for genomics and high throughput screening, announced today that Roche Bioscience (Palo Alto) has joined its consortium to develop an automated electrophysiology system for higher throughput drug screening. Existing partners in the consortium include pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.

As part of the agreement, Axon Instruments will provide Roche Bioscience with a prototype instrument, while Roche Bioscience will provide consultation and product evaluation that will bolster Axon's research and development effort. The technology will be applied to Roche Bioscience's research in the central nervous system area.

"Roche Bioscience is a world leader using high throughput screening for pharmaceutical
drug discovery," said Geoff Powell, president of Axon Instruments. "Their broad experience in all aspects of the high throughput screening process makes this a valuable alliance for Axon. We look forward to an ongoing productive relationship with Roche Bioscience to develop our unique drug discovery systems."

Added Ian Massey, Ph.D., senior vice president Neurobiology, Roche Bioscience: "While we routinely examine the effects of drugs on receptors and ion channels, electrophysiological studies currently provide only a secondary or tertiary screen for compounds. Axon's automated oocyte system could significantly improve our throughput and will allow us to combine the sensitivity of electrophysiology with much greater capacity."

Dr. Andy Blatz, Axon's director of Cell Based Screening Technology, explained the drawbacks with existing ion channel screening technology, "Ion channels are important therapeutic drug targets, but traditional tests are indirect and suffer from many shortcomings. Out of one million drugs undergoing preliminary testing, ten thousand might get through, but there are inaccuracies involved such as false positives and, even worse, false negatives, which can lead to a potential blockbuster drug being ignored. Existing ion channel drug discovery systems can miss significant drug activity because they use indirect methods, such as fluorescence, to study ion channel targets."

"Axon's new electrophysiology drug screening system will be more accurate and more
specific than existing systems, and so increase the efficiency with which drug companies
can screen drugs for a myriad of neuronal and other disorders including migraine, epilepsy, irregular heartbeat and cystic fibrosis," said Dr. Chris Mathes, Axon's manager of High Throughput Electrophysiology Screening. "Our customers will eventually be able to test thousands of drugs a week via this technology at a fraction of the cost of traditional approaches."

Axon Instruments, Inc., (http://www.axon.com/) located in Foster City, California, and founded in 1984, produces a broad spectrum of instrumentation and software for genomics and high throughput screening. Axon is widely recognized as the world's pre-eminent manufacturer of hardware and software products for the cellular neurosciences research community. Axon's goal is to produce a range of superior yet affordable instrument and software systems for drug discovery and diagnostics, aimed at the pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology companies and academic researchers. Axon Instruments was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in March 2000.

As part of the Roche Pharmaceuticals Research organization, Roche Bioscience is focused on diseases of the central nervous system, inflammation and bone diseases as well as genitourinary diseases. Roche Bioscience has approximately 900 employees located on its campus in Palo Alto, Calif. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world's leading research-oriented healthcare groups in the fields of pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and vitamins. Roche's innovative services address the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, thus enhancing people's well-being and quality of life. The Roche PaloAlto website is available at http://www.roche.com/bioscience/