Guildford, United Kingdom, 4 May 2005 — IDBS, today announced that it has acquired the assets of privately held Deffinity Solutions Ltd, based in Portsmouth, UK. Deffinity Solutions is a provider of compliant workflow software, including DAT-LABTM, an innovative and extensible next generation electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) that can be adapted to meet the needs of multiple scientific disciplines.

“Regulatory compliance, 21 CFR part 11, and IP protection are fundamental to the commercial success of today’s drug companies and are the drivers behind many current ELN initiatives” commented Neil Kipling, Chairman and CEO of IDBS. “However, real success will only be achieved through the seamless integration of the ELN with solid data management, analysis and decision-making capability, that can accommodate the working methods and dialects specific to each scientific discipline within the drug discovery workflow. I believe this is where ELN must mature and become a part of a complete enterprise data management solution for drug creation.”

IDBS is a leading provider of integrated data management, analysis and decision-making software for the life sciences industry. This acquisition will enable it to provide secure and compliant protection of its customer’s intellectual property whilst continuing to facilitate collaborative research between biologists and chemists.

“Our insistence on open standards is based on a simple business imperative,” said Dr Paul Denny-Gouldson, CEO of Deffinity Solutions. “Our client’s IP vaults have to be securely and economically maintained for anything between 5 and 60 years. Most existing solutions rely heavily on proprietary approaches and technologies, and as such carry the risk of hidden costs over the longer term, e.g. generating an IP audit trail in a patent dispute will be challenging if faced with version incompatibilities in proprietary technologies. Using standard technologies allows us to make the IP protection element of our system rock solid”

IDBS’ ELN technology is based on open standard component architecture and integrates seamlessly with its existing chemistry technology and ActivityBaseTM product set. Meshing with existing workflows, it provides support of 21 CFR part 11 compliance, GxP enforcement, and electronic sign off right down to the level of a specific tasks. The result is a fully integrated ELN solution that addresses the business critical compliance and data management requirements of research scientists operating in a highly competitive, and IP sensitive, market.

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About IDBS
IDBS provides advanced software solutions for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and agrochemical industries. IDBS applications enable scientists within life science organisations to access, analyse and communicate information, thereby streamlining productivity, improving efficiency and accelerating decision-making.

Headquartered in Guildford, UK, IDBS has U.S. offices in California, New Jersey and Massachusetts. IDBS partners with CTC Laboratory Systems in Japan and a network of distributors to market IDBS products and services in Asia. Founded in 1989, IDBS employs more than 150 people worldwide. For more information, visit: http://www.idbs.com.

About Deffinity Solutions Ltd.
Deffinity Solutions Limited was created in 2000 to focus on producing software to meet the needs of the pharmaceutical and healthcare research and development community. The first product launched was an electronic lab-book (ELN) that is designed to mimic the function of the paper-based laboratory books for all types of scientist. Deffinity Solutions has evolved over the past 5 years but the requirement to meet the needs of the scientist has remained central to its philosophy.

Date
4th May 2005
Ref
05/IDBS/01

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