Cognizant Signs an Agreement with AstraZeneca to Support the Delivery of Clinical Data Management Services

Cognizant Signs an Agreement with AstraZeneca to Support the Delivery of Clinical Data Management Services

Value of 5-year deal anticipated to be approximately $95 million; Cognizant to provide centralized clinical data management services for all of AstraZeneca’s global clinical development

Teaneck, New Jersey and London, UK—March 10, 2008—Cognizant, a leading provider of global IT and business process outsourcing services, today announced an agreement with AstraZeneca to support the company’s drive for greater efficiencies in Clinical Data Management. AstraZeneca is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, widely recognized for its life-changing medicines. The contract is for a period of five years with anticipated revenues of approximately $95 million.

Under this agreement, Cognizant will provide a broad spectrum of centralized data management services for AstraZeneca’s global clinical development programs, including data management planning, clinical study set-up for electronic data capture, medical coding, adverse event reconciliation, clinical data management, and training for the clinical sites and investigators. The intention to centralize these services was announced by AstraZeneca last year as part of its effort to drive R&D efficiencies.

“We are strongly committed to leveraging our deep understanding of the pharmaceutical industry, our leadership in clinical management solutions and our global footprint to help AstraZeneca’s drive to innovate and continue to make a real difference in the way it delivers healthcare,” said Francisco D’Souza, President and CEO, Cognizant. “We will help AstraZeneca centralize and streamline its clinical data management operations through improved process standardization, consistency of delivery, economies of scale and cost savings that AstraZeneca can reinvest to support the fast, innovative and efficient development of their R&D programs.”

“Our existing, long-standing relationship with Cognizant supports our view that they are the best partner to deliver clinical data management services for us,” said Anders Ekblom, Vice President of Clinical Development, AstraZeneca. “Delivering efficiencies through reshaping our business is one of our key strategic priorities.”

In 2004 AstraZeneca engaged Cognizant for other business services across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. These services encompass a broad range of well-integrated business process and technology solutions that span discovery, clinical, manufacturing and commercial operations.

About Cognizant’s Healthcare and Life Sciences Practice
Cognizant’s Healthcare and Life Sciences practice is committed to helping change billions of lives for the better by partnering with our customers to build solutions to healthcare challenges, continually improve the way they do business, set the pace in clinical development, strengthen their regulatory infrastructure, and increase competitiveness.

Consistently ranked among the Healthcare Informatics Top 100 list for the past three years, we work for 6 of the top 10 health plans in the U.S.A, 27 of the top 30 global pharmaceutical companies, 9 of the top 10 biotech companies, and 2 of the top 5 medical device companies.

With over 10,000 dedicated professionals including doctors, pharmacologists, physicians, biomedical engineers, pharmacists, biostatisticians, medical writers, and GxP consultants, we provide domain-aligned consulting, IT, business process and analytics solutions globally.

About AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca is a major international healthcare business engaged in research, development, manufacturing and marketing of prescription pharmaceuticals and supplier for healthcare services. AstraZeneca is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies with healthcare sales of US $29.55 billion and is a leader in gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, neuroscience, respiratory, oncology and infection product sales. AstraZeneca is listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (Global) as well as the FTSE4Good Index. For more information, visit www.astrazeneca.com.

About Cognizant
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing services. Cognizant’s single-minded passion is to dedicate our global technology and innovation know-how, our industry expertise and worldwide resources to working together with clients to make their businesses stronger. With more than 35 global delivery centers and over 55,000 employees as of December 31, 2007, we combine a unique onsite/offshore delivery model infused by a distinct culture of customer satisfaction. A member of the NASDAQ-100 Index and S&P 500 Index, Cognizant is a Forbes Global 2000 company and is ranked among the top information technology companies in BusinessWeek’s Info Tech 100, Hot Growth and Top 50 Performers listings. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com.
 
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