PRINCETON, N.J., Jan 11, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Covance Inc.
(NYSE: CVD) will commemorate its ten year anniversary as a publicly traded
company by ringing The Closing Bell(SM) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
this afternoon. Covance Chairman and CEO Joe Herring will be joined by other
company representatives at the bell platform to mark this event.
"We are extremely proud of all that Covance has accomplished since
becoming a public company ten years ago," said Joe Herring, Chairman and CEO
of Covance. "Our employees take great pride in helping our clients develop
life-saving and life-enhancing medicines for millions of patients around the
world. We believe that Covance's broad safety and efficacy testing service
offerings have helped advance approximately one-quarter of all new medicines
on the market today.
"Covance is very well-positioned in the attractive and growing drug
development services marketplace. We estimate that more than $60 billion is
spent each year on drug development by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology
industries, with approximately 25%, or $15 billion, outsourced to contract
research organizations (CROs) like Covance. As our pharmaceutical clients
increasingly adopt outsourcing to improve the productivity of the expensive
drug development process, we expect the conversion of internal to external
capacity to continue to shift to CROs, leading to continued strong industry
dynamics.
"Our increasing productivity, which is deeply valued by our clients, has
been evident over the last ten years as Covance's net revenue has nearly
tripled while headcount growth has been only 50%, owing to the many process
improvements implemented over the years. In addition, the compounded annual
growth rate of Covance's earnings over the ten year period exceeds 15%, with
the last several years being considerably higher than the average."
A live webcast of the event can be accessed on the home page of
www.nyse.com beginning at 3:55 p.m. ET this afternoon.
Covance, with headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey, is one of the world's
largest and most comprehensive drug development services companies with annual
revenues greater than $1 billion, global operations in more than 20 countries,
and more than 8,000 employees worldwide. Information on Covance's products
and services, recent press releases, and SEC filings can be obtained through
its website at www.covance.com.
Statements contained in this press release, which are not historical
facts, such as statements about prospective earnings, savings, revenue,
operations, revenue and earnings growth and other financial results are
forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward-looking
statements including the statements contained herein regarding anticipated
trends in the Company's business are based largely on management's
expectations and are subject to and qualified by risks and uncertainties that
could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or
implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, without
limitation, competitive factors, outsourcing trends in the pharmaceutical
industry, levels of industry research and development spending, the Company's
ability to continue to attract and retain qualified personnel, the fixed price
nature of contracts or the loss of large contracts, risks associated with
acquisitions and investments, the Company's ability to increase order volume,
the pace of translation of orders into revenue in late-stage development
services, difficulties or delays in integrating the business of Radiant and
achieving anticipated efficiencies and synergies, and other factors described
in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including
its Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. The
Company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement to conform
the statement to actual results or changes in the Company's expectations.