IVGN: Invitrogen Partners with SciQuest to Provide Complete E-Procurement Solution to Customers

SciQuest, Inc., a leading provider of on-demand supplier management and procurement automation solutions, and Invitrogen Corporation Inc., a provider of essential life science technologies for disease research and drug discovery, today announced an e-procurement partnership. As part of this agreement, Invitrogen will offer SciQuest's software solution with its life sciences products and services to deliver a multi-vendor, e-procurement platform to targeted customers.

Invitrogen's partnership with SciQuest enables life science organizations the opportunity to benefit from Invitrogen's B2B services offering. Customers can learn from each other through Invitrogen's extensive experience in customer connectivity and best practices. The partnership will further seek opportunities to explore the integration into inventory management systems and scientific-based search tools, creating more efficiencies for the bench scientist and providing greater spend visibility and contract compliance for purchasing organizations.

"In working with life science clients eager to consolidate purchasing processes, we have found that combining expertise in e-procurement with knowledge of how bioscientists work allows us to provide significant value both to purchasing departments and to end users," said Steve Wiehe, president and CEO of SciQuest. "The combination of Invitrogen and SciQuest will allow both companies to offer this domain expertise and expand our customer base and market reach. This will also bolster SciQuest's continued support of commercial procurement initiatives."

"Our customers are under pressure to streamline their purchasing processes and often ask us to provide complete solutions," said Michael Stapleton, vice president, e-business marketing, at Invitrogen. "Invitrogen has developed multiple web-based programs that help meet this need, but by partnering with SciQuest, our ability to be the preferred one-stop shop increases exponentially, making us an even more valuable partner in the quest to provide essential technologies to life scientists."

In addition to the partnership, the two companies also announced the signing of numerous customers to the initiative: Sanger Institute, Exelixis, and Apoxis.

"Exelixis uses SAP and we had planned to implement connections to suppliers ourselves through SRM," said Delea Magana, purchasing manager at Exelixis. "We would not have known about the benefits of SciQuest without the introduction by Invitrogen. We look forward to getting our e-procurement solution implemented and shifting our procurement focus from transactional to strategic."

Nick Brown, procurement manager at Sanger Institute, added, "We eagerly look forward to the efficiency, customer service, control, and savings we expect to gain through our SciQuest implementation."

Invitrogen's offering of multi-vendor e-procurement technologies is the first of its kind within the life sciences industry. The partnership will allow clients to use SciQuest's software to purchase products from Invitrogen along with other vendors with a single purchase order instead of placing purchase orders with each different vendor. Such consolidation on a platform that offers supplier management, purchasing automation and materials management solutions allows clients to gain efficiency and control over their purchasing practices, driving savings in their organizations. For additional information on how to take advantage of this partnership email Invitrogen at ebusiness@invitrogen.com.

"Our research reveals that domain expertise is a strong criteria for clients when choosing an e-procurement provider," said Sudy Bharadwaj, vice president at the Aberdeen Group, a leading provider of fact-based research focused on the global technology-driven value chain. "The combined strength of Invitrogen with the technology foundation of SciQuest, brings to the market a powerful solution that delivers on this capability."

Representatives from SciQuest and Invitrogen will be highlighting the partnership during NextLevel 2007, taking place January 21-24 in San Diego, California. This invitation-only event is a forum for the exchange of best practices, networking with peers and exploring the future direction of electronic procurement and supplier relationship management. For more information, go to http://www.sciquest.com/nextlevel2007/

About SciQuest
SciQuest provides on-demand supplier enablement and procurement automation solutions that reduce operating costs, drive end-user adoption, bring more spend under management and increase visibility into organization-wide spending. Through SciQuest solutions, organizations gain immediate cost savings and rapid ROI.

Organizations can quickly enable a critical mass of suppliers through the SciQuest Supplier Network (SQSN) and leverage SciQuest Managed Services to fully manage catalog data and order delivery on an ongoing basis, significantly reducing the need for in-house IT and support resources. With an integrated supplier base, organizations can maximize on-contract spending and gain real-time visibility and reporting capabilities throughout the entire order process. In addition to a source-to-settle suite of e-procurement applications, SciQuest also offers supplier and order management modules that seamlessly integrate with existing ERP and enterprise financial systems, driving greater return from existing investments. For more information about SciQuest, please visit www.sciquest.com, or call 919.659.2100.