Rohm and Haas Company and Dow AgroSciences Join CENSA To Develop Electronic Laboratory Notebook Systems

--Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association creates electronic notebooks for R&D environment--

Medford, MA, June 3, 1998--The Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association, Medford, MA announced today that two, leading U.S. based chemical producers-Rohm and Haas Company and Dow AgroSciences have joined CENSA.

The Rohm and Haas Company-dedicated to polymer design and small molecule chemistry-is one of the world's premier suppliers of specialty chemicals with sales of $4 billion. Dow AgroSciences (formerly Dow Elanco) is one of the world's largest agricultural products companies focused on crop production and pest management with annual sales of more than $2 billion.

The Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association is an international group of companies in the pharmaceutical, chemical, bio-tech, high tech, and related industries working, interactively, together to solve major research and automation problems by creating products that change the nature of science and innovation into the 21st Century.

Dr. Judy Allison, Manager of Information Services in Rohm and Haas Company said, "Creating, searching, and retrieving electronic notebook records will allow us to achieve superior results in less time. The Association's expertise is enabling us to take confidently the steps toward the valuable electronic management of our laboratory notebooks."

Dr. Allison added, "CENSA provides us with great leverage for our investment. The costs we would entail for developing specifications alone, far exceeds the membership fees we are paying. In addition to specifications, we are getting software products, training, and many of the other tangible benefits we need to be successful in this complex electronic area."

Laurie Rolston, Manager of the Research Information Systems Group, Dow AgroSciences, said, "Having the benefits of full searchability of electronic laboratory notebooks will have a huge favorable impact on our scientists. As a CENSA Member, we now have the ability to interact with other companies who are committed to the same goals and we are able to share a wealth of knowledge that we would not have access to if we were developing systems on our own."

Rich Lysakowski, Executive Director of CENSA, said, "The products from CENSA will have a huge impact on scientific organizations who are currently utilizing paper notebooks. This move toward automation and electronic recordkeeping in R&D laboratories will enable companies to better focus on their critical missions and goals, by greatly reducing their requirements to manage research record collections. More importantly, we are setting the standards for acceptance of electronic notebook data as a legal record. All of this will have a major impact on intellectual property law worldwide."

CENSA, an association of large industrial companies, is driving the creation of electronic laboratory notebooks, R&D team project data management and collaboration systems for the chemical, pharmaceutical, biotech, food and beverage, oil and gas, and related industries. One of the primary goals of CENSA is to ensure that these systems comply with legal and regulatory requirements for electronic recordkeeping.

CENSA focuses on the needs of Automation Managers, Regulatory Affairs, R&D Managers, Scientists, Patent Attorneys, Records Managers and Quality Assurance Staff, who have a significant amount to gain from the development of electronic laboratory notebooks.

CENSA is currently recruiting End User and Supplier Members. End User members share the expense, benefits, and risks of developing comprehensive integrated systems for R&D team computing, document management, electronic recordkeeping, and electronic notebooks. They, also, share the collective financial commitment required to build systems. As End User members, they receive early access to software and knowledge deliverables. The collaborative development of industry-specific modules will produce tools and enabling technologies for R&D team computing.

CENSA is now beginning to evaluate prospective Supplier Members and systems that supply functionality for electronic notebooks and recordkeeping systems, groupware, document management, the Internet and World Wide Web Systems, Library Information Management Systems, instrument interfacing, chemical information management, and other collaborative computing tools.

Depending upon which membership tier they choose, Supplier Members receive benefits which include voting rights at joint vendor/member technical meetings to determine system and component architectures, marketing and promotional opportunities, receipt of all association knowledge deliverables, detailed specifications, RFPs and market research. Rich Lysakowski commented, "This is a wonderful opportunity for vendors who are committed to these markets to have early access to a committed, open and ready customer base."

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CENSA is a registered trademark. All other companies and products mentioned are trademarks of their respective companies.

Organizations interested in becoming CENSA End User or Supplier Members, or want more information, contact:

Dr. Rich Lysakowski, Chief Science and Technology Officer and Advisor
The Collaborative Electronic Notebooks Systems Association
19 Bowen Avenue, Suite 100, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA
Phone: 781-395-3004 ; Internet: rich@censa.org