The group's principal activities are to develop, manufacture and market innovative, research enabling tools used in drug discovery at pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, universities and government laboratories. these tools are designed to accelerate the speed and to reduce the cost at which the group's customers can discover and commercialize new drugs. in march 1996, the group focussed on developing tools to alleviate two critical bottlenecks in the drug discovery process: proteomics during the target validation stage and admet screening during the secondary screening stage of the drug discovery process. the group sells these instruments, devices and consumables through its catalog, distributors and web site. the group distributes most of its products directly through its operations in the united states, the united kingdom, germany, france and canada.