CVGR Covalent

Covalent Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: CVGR) and Sudler & Hennessey, part of the Young and Rubicam Brands family of companies, today announced they have entered into a Strategic Partnership for the design and conduct of Patient Disease Registries. For the past several years, the companies have been working together on multiple projects on an informal basis. The new arrangement: -- establishes tactical resources for business development and co-marketing, -- commits specific teams to design, operational, technical, and project management efforts, and -- initiates a long-term strategic planning and communications framework. Covalent Group is a recognized leader in the design and management of complex clinical trials and Patient Disease Registries for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Recent examples of landmark clinical trials in which Covalent has contributed importantly include Pfizer's REVERSAL and CAMELOT-NORMALISE studies as well as Merck's Herpes Zoster (Shingles) Prevention study. Data from these clinical research trials have appeared as lead articles in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Over the past five years, Covalent has been conducting multiple Patient Disease Registries which have ranged in size from one thousand to nearly 40,000 subjects. Sudler & Hennessey is a premier global healthcare marketing and communications organization. In addition to biopharmaceutical promotion, S&H provides strategic consultancy and communications support for general healthcare marketing-related issues. Sudler & Hennessey produces programs to reach a wide range of healthcare professionals, their patients and support networks. Sudler & Hennessey's medical education division, IntraMed, develops medical educational programs on behalf of its clients. These educational efforts provide important communications support to all levels of healthcare professionals as well as their patients. WHAT IS A PATIENT DISEASE REGISTRY AND WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT? Patient Disease Registries serve to gather real-world medical and health economics data that support clinical decision-making. In contrast to Product Registries, which focus only on a single product, Patient Disease Registries include patients that have been exposed to various treatment regimens such as traditional standard-of-care as well as innovative drugs, biologic, or devices. Patient Disease Registries usually have ongoing independent oversight performed by acknowledged leaders in the therapeutic area(s) of interest that is/are being evaluated. Specific benefits of Patient Disease Registries include: -- providing opportunities to rapidly populate databases with real-world safety and efficacy information that can be analyzed and disseminated in a timely manner using multiple formats -- creating insights into therapy utilization patterns, product performance, quality-of-life measures, healthcare resource utilization and cost analyses, and the impact of behavior change initiatives such as national guidelines and local protocols -- offering an ideal tool for reaching out in a clinically meaningful and credible way to the general medical community -- providing multiple communication and medical education opportunities -- early identification of clinical trends that can subsequently be evaluated more thoroughly in randomized trials. Functionally, the design and support of a successful Patient Disease Registry requires a high level of integration between multiple skill sets including design and consulting expertise, global medical and technical communications networks, educational programming, clinical research operations capabilities, and medical writing. Kenneth M. Borow, M.D., Covalent Group's President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "Recently there has been a tremendous focus on the need for more thorough evidence-based real-world patient safety and efficacy data. This represents a truly unmet need within the global healthcare arena. We believe that formalizing our Strategic Partnership with S&H to design and conduct Patient Disease Registries will combine Covalent's excellence in clinical trial consulting, design, and operations with Sudler & Hennessey's world-class healthcare communications expertise to create a formidable and forward-looking capability to meet this challenge. We are exceptionally proud of the fact that S&H has chosen Covalent as its Strategic Partner in this very important initiative." Dr. Jim Metropoulos, Co-President of Sudler & Hennessey, US stated, "Our new Strategic Partnership with Covalent Group fits very well with our stated goal of increasing our product offerings to the biopharmaceutical industry. Registries are increasingly recognized as essential components of product lifecycle planning and are being utilized from product launch through line extension. The combined Covalent-S&H Patient Disease Registry offering will result in many new business opportunities for both companies." Louisa Holland, Co-President of Sudler & Hennessey, US added, "Experience from Patient Disease Registry programs in multiple categories, such as growth hormone therapy and heart failure, clearly shows that data collected as part of this type of effort are important to physicians as they make evidence-based treatment decisions for their patients. We believe that our Strategic Partnership with Covalent Group brings together many complementary capabilities that will be very well received by our clients as well as by the global healthcare community." About Covalent Group, Inc. Covalent Group, Inc. is a clinical research organization that is a leader in the design and management of complex clinical trials and Patient Disease Registries for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. The Company's mission is to provide its clients with high quality, full-service support for their biopharmaceutical development programs. Covalent offers therapeutic expertise, experienced team management and advanced technologies. The Company has drug and biologics development as well as clinical trial experience across a wide variety of therapeutic areas such as cardiovascular, endocrinology/metabolism, diabetes, vaccines, infectious diseases, gene therapy, immunology, neurology, oncology, gastroenterology, dermatology, hepatology, women's health and respiratory medicine. Covalent believes that its leadership in the design of complex clinical trials, its therapeutic expertise and commitment to excellence, and its application of innovative technologies, offer its clients a means to more quickly and cost effectively move products through the clinical development process. With its wholly-owned international subsidiary, Covalent Group, Ltd., as well as its Strategic Partners operating in various regions around the world, Covalent is able to meet the global drug development needs of its clients. For more information, please visit www.covalentgroup.com. About Sudler & Hennessey The S&H Group is a global healthcare marketing and communications organization with offices around the world. The network includes two global communications agencies - Sudler & Hennessey, with U.S. headquarters in New York City, and Sentrix Global Health Communications, with U.S. headquarters in Short Hills, New Jersey. S&H also has specialized divisions in medical education (IntraMed Educational Group and Precept Medical Communications), as well as in market research and strategic planning, branding, publication strategies, sales training (HealthAnswers), and digital solutions (Avenue-e Health Strategies). For more information, please visit www.sudler.com. About Young & Rubicam Brands Young & Rubicam Brands is a diversified, global marketing and communications organization with integrated services in advertising, database marketing and customer relationship management, perception management and public relations, branding identity consultation and design services, and healthcare communications. Young & Rubicam is composed of Y&R Advertising, The Bravo Group, Kang & Lee, Wunderman, KnowledgeBase Marketing, Mediaedge:cia, Burson-Marsteller, Cohn & Wolfe, Landor Associates, Sudler & Hennessey, Robinson Lerer & Montgomery and other related companies. For more information, please visit www.yr.com. About WPP WPP is one of the world's largest communications groups, providing services to local, multinational and global clients, including more than 330 of the Fortune Global 500. Collectively, WPP employs more than 91,000 people in over 2000 offices in 106 countries. For more information, please visit www.wpp.com. This press release contains forward-looking statements identified by words such as "estimate," "project," "expect," "intend," "believe," "anticipate" and similar expressions. Actual results might differ materially from those projected in, expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements. Potential risks and uncertainties that could affect the Company's future operating results and financial condition include, without limitation: (i) our success in attracting new business and retaining existing clients and projects; (ii) the size, duration, and timing of clinical trials we are currently managing may change unexpectedly; (iii) the termination, delay or cancellation of clinical trials we are currently managing could cause revenues to decline unexpectedly; (iv) the timing difference between our receipt of contract milestone or scheduled payments and our incurring costs to manage these trials; (v) outsourcing trends in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries; (vi) the ability to maintain profit margins in a competitive marketplace; (vii) our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel; (viii) the sensitivity of our business to general economic conditions; (ix) other economic, competitive, governmental and technological factors affecting our operations, markets, products, services and prices; (x) announced awards received from existing and potential customers are not definitive until fully negotiated contracts are executed by the parties; and (xi) our backlog may not be indicative of future revenues and may not generate the revenues expected. You should not place any undue reliance on these forward looking statements which speak only as of the date of this press release. Additional information concerning factors that might affect our business or stock price which could cause actual results to materially differ from those in forward-looking statements is contained in Covalent Group's SEC filings, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004 and other periodic reports under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, copies of which are available upon request from Covalent Group's investor relations department or The Equity Group Inc.