Software System, Co-Developed by GSK and Phase Forward Lincoln
Safety Group, Helps to Predict Safety Issues in Early-Stage
Pharmaceutical Research
WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 27, 2008--Phase Forward
(NASDAQ: PFWD), a leading provider of data management solutions for
clinical trials and drug safety, today congratulated its customer GSK
on winning a 2008 Technology Innovation Award from The Wall Street
Journal, taking top honors in the Healthcare IT category. The Journal
received more than 700 entries for the awards.
The Innovation Award recognized GSK's Molecular Clinical Safety
Intelligence (MCSI) system, co-developed with the Phase Forward
Lincoln Safety Group. The MCSI solution helps GSK researchers to
screen and triage novel drug candidates for potential adverse medical
reactions at a much earlier point in the drug development process than
previously possible. MCSI enables, for the first time, direct
translation of safety knowledge from human clinical experience to
early-stage drug discovery. MCSI compares the chemical and
pharmacological profiles of early drug candidates to safety knowledge
about drugs that have been previously tested.
The Wall Street Journal's award description notes, "This helps
pharmaceutical researchers (at GSK) avoid spending time and resources
on promising drugs only to find after several years that the drugs
can't be marketed because they're potentially harmful."
The software was developed by a multi-disciplinary team involving
GSK's Global Clinical Safety and Pharmacovigilance (GCSP) and
Computational Chemistry teams, and the Phase Forward Lincoln Safety
Group, with input from GSK's Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery
scientific community.
"We are honored that our innovative GSK team has been recognized
for creating a system that will help to minimize the attrition of
products in our pipeline due to safety concerns," said Dr. June
Almenoff, Vice President, Safety Evaluation and Risk Management,
Global Clinical Safety and Pharmacovigilance, GSK.
According to GSK, MCSI is the first system that brings together
knowledge of chemistry, human and animal safety, drug metabolism and
pharmacology in ways that allow scientists to rapidly evaluate
potential safety risks of novel medicines as they are being designed
and synthesized in the laboratory.
"We offer our long-time friend and partner Dr. Almenoff and her
team our most sincere congratulations on this impressive industry
honor," said Phase Forward Lincoln Safety Group President Chan
Russell. "Having had the opportunity to work closely together on many
initiatives, including the MCSI system, we have seen firsthand the
organization's commitment to innovation as a means to bring safer
drugs to market. We're proud to be close working partners with a group
so deserving of this recognition."
About Phase Forward
Phase Forward is a leading provider of integrated data management
solutions for clinical trials and drug safety. The company offers
proven solutions for electronic data capture (InForm(TM)), phase I
clinic automation (LabPas(TM)), clinical data management
(Clintrial(TM)), clinical trials signal detection (CTSD(TM)),
strategic pharmacovigilance (Empirica Signal(TM)) and Signal
Management, adverse event reporting (Empirica Trace(TM)), applied data
standards (WebSDM(TM)) and Web-integrated interactive response
technologies (Clarix(TM)). In addition, the company provides services
in the areas of application implementation, hosting and validation,
data integration, business process optimization, safety data
management and industry standards. Phase Forward's products and
services have been utilized in over 10,000 clinical trials involving
more than 1,000,000 clinical trial study participants at over 280
organizations and regulatory agencies worldwide including:
AstraZeneca, Boston Scientific, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Eli
Lilly, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, GlaxoSmithKline, Harvard
Clinical Research Institute, Merck Serono, Novartis, Novo Nordisk,
PAREXEL International, Procter & Gamble, Quintiles, sanofi-aventis,
Schering-Plough Research Institute, Servier, Tibotec and the U.K.
Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. Additional
information about Phase Forward is available at www.phaseforward.com.
Cautionary Statement
Certain statements made in this press release that are not based
on historical information are forward-looking statements which are
made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This press release contains express or
implied forward-looking statements relating to, among other things,
the performance of Phase Forward's products and services, continued
market acceptance of Phase Forward's products and services, and the
ability of Phase Forward's customers to realize benefits from the use
of Phase Forward's products and services. These statements are neither
promises nor guarantees, but are subject to a variety of risks and
uncertainties, many of which are beyond Phase Forward's control, which
could cause actual results to differ materially from those
contemplated in these forward-looking statements. In particular, the
risks and uncertainties include, among other things, the ability of
Phase Forward's customers to realize benefits from the use of its
products and services, the possibility that customers' needs or plans
may change over time, and the introduction or improvement of products
and services competitive with those of Phase Forward. Existing and
prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on
these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date
hereof. Phase Forward undertakes no obligation to update or revise the
information contained in this press release, whether as a result of
new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise. For
additional disclosure regarding these and other risks faced by Phase
Forward, see the disclosure contained in Phase Forward's public
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including, without
limitation, its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K.
CONTACT: Phase Forward
Elaine Maynard, 781-902-4371
elaine.maynard@phaseforward.com
or
CHEN PR, Inc.
Randy Wambold, 781-672-3119
rwambold@chenpr.com
SOURCE: Phase Forward
