DALLAS, TX--(Marketwired - February 17, 2015) - Vivione Biosciences Inc. ("Vivione") (TSX VENTURE: VBI), announced today that it has entered into a preferred vendor relationship with Ely and Associates to provide microbiology testing and equipment. Ely and Associates is a world renowned Engineering and Consulting Firm dedicated to implementing best in class technologies and practices in fracturing technology, well completions, stimulation fluid design, and reservoir analysis. Employing more than 100 consulting engineers worldwide, Ely advised on more than 50,000 hydraulic fracturing stages during 2014.
Vivione officials expect the arrangement to expand the opportunity for Vivione's RAPID-B bacterial testing platform and services by exposing the technology to Ely's customer base of over 600 domestic and international Energy & Production Companies. "Our testing services have been incredibly well received by our current base of customers in the U.S. and Canada. Becoming Ely's preferred testing service will allow us to quickly scale our business by gaining access to over 100,000 potential bacterial tests annually," according to Kevin Kuykendall, CEO of Vivione.
Through the arrangement, Ely will be adding the Oil and Gas industry's latest advance in microbial testing to its arsenal of technical solutions. "We are committed to bringing our clients the best technology available to assist them in maximizing the effectiveness and productivity of their fracturing & drilling operations," said John Ely, Founder and CEO of Ely Associates. "Well stimulation activities can introduce bacteria into the formation that can impede production, corrode infrastructure, and sour the well. Vivione's bacterial detection platform and services will allow us to immediately assist our clients helping them to save money and time by quickly resolving or preventing problems that occur before, during, and after treatment."
Ely's consulting engineers will now have access to Vivione's suite of testing services that include assessments with the proprietary RAPID-B platform . The RAPID-B system is a rugged, medical grade, diagnostic device consisting of hardware, software, and wetware. Developed in collaboration with the FDA, RAPID-B provides a technological advancement in bacterial detection for the Food Safety, Oil and Gas, and Clinical Diagnostics markets. The system can be deployed into the oil field or field based lab environment and render quantitative and qualitative bacterial analysis in 20 minutes or less. Current oilfield testing methods require "culturing" or growing the bacteria in order to detect their presence. This process can take up to 28 days. Other methods rely on ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) as a marker of bacterial presence, which gives a relatively imprecise measurement of the presence of bacteria in oilfield water samples. RAPID-B uses unique physical characteristic "signatures" of bacteria, in addition to chemical reagents that bind only to bacterial DNA thus enumerating the number of viable bacteria in real time. Where onsite testing isn't possible, the samples will be sent to Vivione's Ph.D. staffed lab service, known as "Petro Chemical Bio-Diagnostics," a joint venture between Vivione and the Institute for Environmental Health, Inc. (IEH). Petro Chemical Bio-Diagnostics provides a range of solutions to the Oil and Gas Industry, including Total Bacteria Count (TBC), post Bio -Treatment Efficacy Testing, (BET), SRB-specific real time Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR), and a comprehensive test showing all the bacteria in a given sample (including the individual species and percentages) known as the Well Characterization Test (WCT). For more information please visit www.pcbdservices.com.
About Ely and Associates
Ely and Associates was founded in May of 1991 by John Ely and three partners to assist drilling, operating and service companies in the development and improvement of their drilling, fracturing and stimulation processes. With millions of stages completed, Ely is considered one the world's foremost experts on the effective management of the oil & gas drilling & production process.
About Vivione
Vivione is a TSX Venture Exchange listed biosciences company focused on the commercialization of its proprietary RAPID-B platform; an integrated platform of hardware, software and reagents that quickly and accurately identify, quantify and qualify bacteria and other pathogens in key food & water safety, clinical, industrial and oil & gas environments. For more information, visit www.VivioneBiosciences.com.
Cautionary Statements
This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Although Vivione believes that the expectations reflected in its forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements have been based on factors and assumptions concerning future events that may prove to be inaccurate. These factors and assumptions are based upon currently available information to Vivione. Such statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could influence actual results or events and cause actual results or events to differ materially from those stated, anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. This news release contains forward-looking information relating to the commercialization and the development of the RAPID-B platform. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The statements in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and, except as required by applicable law, Vivione does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Vivione undertakes no obligation to comment on analyses, expectations or statements made by third parties in respect of Vivione, or its financial or operating results or (as applicable), their securities.
NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.