COVANCE LAUNCHES BIOLINKTM
A NEW BIOANALYTICAL SERVICES OFFERING
Superior Data, Faster Turnaround, and New Standards of Process Excellence Will be the
Focus of the Company's New, State-of-the-Art Bioanalytical Laboratory
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Princeton, N.J., October 30, 2000 — With the goal of setting the new worldwide standard for bioanalytical services, Covance Inc. (NYSE: CVD) today announced the launch of its new BioLink service offering and the official opening of its 35,000 square foot bioanalytical laboratory in Indianapolis, Indiana. BioLinkTM represents a major opportunity for Covance to provide the pharmaceutical industry with a more efficient way to manage their clinical testing needs and produce better quality data in a reduced timeframe.
Building upon Covance's current preclinical bioanalytical chemistry business, BioLinkTM will provide testing services to determine the appropriate dose amount and frequency of a drug from late discovery evaluation through Phase III clinical testing. Covance is now the only contract research organization that provides these services to the pharmaceutical industry on a full-service, global, integrated basis.
Clinical trials are becoming increasingly complex as pharmaceutical companies expand the testing of drugs to new global markets and more diverse patient populations. With a greater emphasis on drug/drug interactions and a deeper understanding of the role pharmacogenetics plays in drug development, there is an increasing demand for clinical bioanalytical services. The market for outsourced bioanalytical services has grown in excess of 20% per annum over the last three years and is currently estimated at approximately $500 million.
"Covance has made a significant investment in technology, scientific and regulatory staff and a state-of-the-art facility to deliver a whole new bioanalytical standard to the pharmaceutical industry," said Joseph Herring, Covance Corporate Senior Vice President and President of Early Development Services. "By raising the standard of excellence in this area, we aim to reduce the time and cost of the drug development process for our clients and capture the leading share of the fast-growing Phase II/III bioanlaytical lab services market."
Covance will operate more than thirty mass spectrometry instruments globally, providing sufficient capacity to meet deadlines and turnaround times for large clinical sample sets. In addition to state-of-the-art technology, equipment and processes, BioLinkTM operations are supported by an experienced staff of scientific and technical experts to advise on method design, evaluation and regulatory issues, and ensure timely and accurate communication with clients.
The new bioanalytical laboratory facility is located adjacent to Covance's industry-leading central laboratory, which manages more than 4.5 million medical samples from clinical trials each year, enabling the Company to leverage its existing global shipping infrastructure and sample management expertise. The Company also indicated that the new laboratory facility is designed so that it can readily expand up to an additional 35,000 square feet to accommodate an increase in customer needs.
According to Tim Halls, Ph.D., Vice President of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, "This major expansion of our bioanalytical business enables Covance to support high volume global clinical trials with even better data and the fastest turnaround of any facility in the world. This will allow our customers to achieve superior laboratory results in record time."
Covance, with headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey, is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive drug development services companies with 1999 revenues of $829 million, operations currently in 17 countries, and approximately 7,900 employees worldwide. Much more informtaion about Covance can be found throughbout the site, including our products and services, other recent press releases, and SEC filings.
Statements contained in this press release, which are not historical facts, such as statements about prospective earnings, savings, revenue, 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, continued growth in demand for bioanalytical services, Covance's ability to provide these services on a large scale basis, and other factors described in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. |
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