New Approach for Integrating R&D Data and Workflows Gains Momentum in Pharmaceutical Industry

More than 75 pharmaceutical, biotechnology and chemical companies
have licensed the new, open-technology MDL(R) Isentris(R) system to
address common R&D challenges, Elsevier MDL has announced. Leading
research companies turning to the new-generation Isentris system
include more than half of Elsevier MDL's top 30 customers.

The announcement came during a forum hosted by Elsevier MDL for
research and IT executives from around the world to address strategies
and new informatics technology for reducing R&D timelines, cutting
costs and improving productivity.

"For more than a decade, almost every major pharmaceutical company
has relied upon the current-standard, MDL(R) ISIS(R) technology in
their labs," said President and CEO Lars Barfod, Elsevier MDL. "Many
companies are now seeing the potential to realize significantly better
results from their operations by migrating to Isentris. The recent
Isentris 2.0 release far surpasses ISIS and competitive systems in
terms of functionality, performance and lower cost of ownership."

With Isentris, organizations are giving scientists easier access
to relevant data in the course of their normal workflows, and are
facilitating coordination of the tools and capabilities needed to make
decisions on that data. Isentris includes .NET controls for rapidly
building customized, easy-to-use research environments with powerful
scientific capabilities.

"The growing migration to Isentris reflects a new era, an
'Informatics 2.0' for scientists," said Dr. Trevor Heritage, Senior
Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, Elsevier MDL.
"Researchers have control to create and access the specific views of
data they need to answer questions and test hypotheses immediately --
without relying on IT support."

In a case study cited in the executive forum, a European
pharmaceutical company that migrated to Isentris from ISIS praised the
system's much improved integration and ease-of-use, and scientists'
new ability to access biological assay data, chemistry and other
experimental and calculated data as soon as it is created.

An example of Isentris performance and cost-saving advantages is
improved operation over wide area networks (WAN) that connect
geographically remote labs. On a WAN, Isentris lets scientists perform
common tasks like browsing chemical records 15 times faster than ISIS,
and retrieve searches two to three times faster. This speed makes WAN
configurations practical for many organizations with multi-site
operations, which in turn offer a path to significant cost savings.

More information about Isentris, including presentations from the
executive roundtable session, white papers and case studies are
available on www.mdl.com/executive.

About Elsevier MDL

Elsevier MDL provides informatics, database and workflow solutions
that accelerate successful scientific R&D by improving the speed and
quality of scientists' decision making. Researchers around the world
depend on Elsevier MDL for innovative and reliable discovery
informatics software solutions and services. For more information,
visit www.mdl.com.

MDL and Isentris are registered trademarks of MDL Information
Systems, Inc. ('Elsevier MDL') in the United States. All rights
reserved. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the
property of their respective owners.