Subject: SEARLE/MONSANTO JOINS ELECTRONIC NOTEBOOKS CONSORTIUM

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 01:18:03 -0500 (EST)

Dear Colleague,

Electronic notebooks and collaborative computing systems are vitally
important 
for forwarding current progress in science and technology.  

Please forward this to all technical or business persons in your enterprises
with a need to know about this important global activity.  Thank you.
 
======================================================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  02/07/96

Contact:  Dr. Rich Lysakowski, Executive Director
The Collaborative Electronic Notebooks Systems (CENS) Consortium
8 Pheasant Avenue Sudbury, Massachusetts USA 01776
phone: 508-443-4771;  fax: 508-440-9798; e-mail:  [email-masked]
=================================================================

SEARLE/MONSANTO JOINS ELECTRONIC NOTEBOOKS CONSORTIUM 
TO DEVELOP SYSTEMS TO PROTECT AND MANAGE INTELLECTUAL 
PROPERTY RECORDS FOR R&D

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 life cycle 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 reach 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 vendors 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.

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

Dr. Rich Lysakowski, Consortium Executive Director, 
The Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Consortium
8 Pheasant Avenue, Sudbury, MA 01776. E-mail: [email-masked], 
Tel: 508-443-4771. Fax: 508-440-9798.

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 Sudbury, 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.

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