Contact: Dr. Rich Lysakowski, Executive Director, The Collaborative Electronic Notebooks Systems (CENS) Consortium 19 Bowen Avenue, Suite 100, Medford, Massachusetts 02155 USA Phone: 781-395-3004 ; Internet: rich@censa.org

Searle/Monsanto Joins Electronic Notebooks Consortium to Develop Systems
Founding Membership Now Complete for Global R&D Systems Consortium
The Electronic Notebooks Consortium Completes Founding Membership

BOSTON, MA-- The Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems (CENS) Consortium recently named ten major international corporations as Founding Members, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dow Chemical Company, HB Fuller, Rohm and Haas, and Searle/Monsanto.

The goal of the Consortium is to influence the creation and design of industrial-strength software and standards for R&D and testing lab applications. Its primary focus is on R&D Team computing Systems, including hardware and software for basic electronic recordkeeping, project data management and collaboration, and interfacing tools for integrating common laboratory data types and instruments, and specifically, collaborative electronic lab notebooks.

The Consortium is focusing on the needs of end users, including chemists, biologists, materials scientists, engineers, and their affiliated patent attorneys, records managers, corporate intellectual property staff, and others who sometimes spend twenty percent or more of their time now working with paper records throughout the lifecycle of those records.

Archie Campbell, Executive Director of Chemical Sciences at Searle/Monsanto explains "The advantage of being a part of the Consortium is that it gives us access to the group's decades of industrial experience, as well as the expertise to use that experience as a tool to help our own teams achieve peak performance. By giving our teams rapid access to diverse information, the Consortium will help our company get the greatest possible synergy among our scientists."

The Consortium's component-based software and hardware architectures are being designed to include modules to support scientists working in combinatorial chemistry, high-throughput screening, genetics, toxicology, analytical chemistry, materials science, agrochemical, environmental, and other types of testing and R&D laboratories.

"Good systems at reasonable prices" is the mantra bringing members and vendors to the Consortium. "Building on top of well-tested, industry-leading hardware and software platforms for groupware, document management, and the Web, rather than building from scratch, will let the consortium deliver things quickly and cost effectively," says Dr. Rich Lysakowski, Consortium Executive Director and a principal of TeamScience, the firm leading and managing the Consortium. "We are emphasizing the use of forward-looking tools and open standards such as CORBA, Java, JavaBeans, ActiveX, and the World Wide Web in all of our lab and R&D modules."

A major technical goal of the consortium is to pull together the necessary existing technology pieces and use them in the right combinations to satisfy various common requirements while, at the same time, establishing more software standards for open, integrated systems for R&D and testing laboratories.

Software vendors selected by the Consortium will build object-oriented, client/server and middleware modules and applications for collaborative electronic notebooks and other R&D applications to meet the diverse needs of members at reasonable prices. Hardware vendors chosen by the Consortium will build specialized hand-held, PDA devices, portable notebooks, and servers for running the new electronic recordkeeping protocols.

The Consortium is pooling the resources of major end-user corporations to create legally-acceptable systems and applications for R&D intellectual property protection and management. It has started defining practical procedures, protocols, and standards that meet all the major legal and regulatory requirements for open systems that manage electronic records in accurate, trustworthy, reliable ways. The Consortium is building on the work of the Electronic Records Consortium (ERC), the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), the U.S. FDA, PTO, the University of Pittsburgh and other recent research projects done by agencies in Europe, Asia, and Australia.

"We are focusing heavily on securing intellectual property electronically, in ways that are equal or better than paper systems," adds Dr. Lysakowski. "Consortium Members receive detailed engineering specifications, procedures, benchmarks and statements of best practices, plus supporting documentation for trustworthy and reliable electronic recordkeeping and records management. These deliverables will help large companies to transition successfully to fully electronic recordkeeping systems. What we are doing is generally useful to all major corporations and organizations that want to use electronic records."

"The Consortium also increases our efficiency by allowing us to be a part of a single voice which interacts with multiple venders and regulatory agencies," concludes Archie Campbell of Searle/Monsanto. "Without the Consortium, these issues would be much harder to address. "The Consortium has now begun recruiting standard members and vendor members as it moves into the next phase of operations.

The Consortium has now begun recruiting standard members and vendor members as it moves into the next phase of operations.

Organizations interested in becoming Consortium Members, or seeking more information on TeamScience, Inc., should contact:

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

G.D. Searle, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Monsanto Company, develops, manufactures, and markets prescription pharmaceuticals and other healthcare solutions worldwide. Its mission is to bring to the market innovative, value-added healthcare products that satisfy unmet medical needs. Based in Skokie, Illinois, USA, Searle currently operates administrative offices in 34 countries and manufacturing plants in 12 locations worldwide.

TeamScience, Inc. is the leading international firm in scientific software technical and market research, engineering, training, and publishing. With headquarters in Medford, Massachusetts, USA, TeamScience focuses on consortia and partnerships to deliver scientific applications of groupware, electronic notebooks and records management systems, document management, LIMS, and instrument interfacing systems and standards.

###