Covance Expands Service Offerings With New Biorepository Facility

PRINCETON, N.J., June 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Covance Inc. (NYSE: CVD), a leading provider of drug development services, announced today that it has opened a state-of-the-art biorepository facility at its Greenfield, Indiana location. The 20,000-square-foot building is dedicated to long-term storage of clinical trial specimens.  The facility is able to store a wide-range of specimens, including plasma, serum, whole blood, DNA, PBMC, and tissue.

Covance, through its market-leading central laboratory, has stored and managed patient specimens for the past 20 years, and the opening of this new facility further enhances the company's ability to keep client specimens safe and secure. The biorepository has unsurpassed safety and security features, including the ability to withstand exposure to winds in excess of 300 miles per hour which is the equivalent of an F5 tornado, the highest level of tornado intensity.   The facility offers a wide range of frozen storage including -20 degrees C, -70 degrees C, -80 degrees C, and -150 degrees C vapor phase liquid nitrogen.

"We believe Covance has the latest technology and capacity to meet our clients' sample storage and testing needs for many years to come," said Deborah Tanner, corporate senior vice president, and president, Central Laboratory Services and Discovery & Translational Services.  "By adding this biorepository to our existing central laboratory facilities, we are able to quickly store samples from our central labs and biomarkers work as well as samples from other sources. Our experience in clinical trial specimen testing and storage enables us to manage the entire lifecycle from specimen draw to final destruction, which minimize the risk for our clients due to shipping and moving specimens."

The increasing number of global clinical trials, as well as regulatory requirements around retesting of specimens, has driven pharmaceutical and biotech companies to look for a comprehensive provider of long-term storage and future testing services.  Covance's new biorepository is adjacent to the company's Biomarker Center of Excellence and in close proximity to its largest central laboratory location, allowing clients to protect their specimens and leverage Covance's biomarker and clinical testing capabilities.  Covance clients receive complete consultation services with specimen and project management experts, as well as scientific and medical guidance on developing new assays for future testing.

About Covance

Covance, with headquarters in Princeton, NJ, is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive drug development and food testing companies with annual revenues greater than $1.8 billion, global operations in more than 30 countries, and more than 10,000 employees worldwide.  Information on Covance's products and services, recent press releases, and SEC filings can be obtained through its website at www.covance.com.

Statements contained in this press release, which are not historical facts, such as statements about prospective earnings, savings, revenue, operations, revenue and earnings growth and other financial results are forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward-looking statements including the statements contained herein regarding anticipated trends in the Company's business are based largely on management's expectations and are subject to and qualified by risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, competitive factors, outsourcing trends in the pharmaceutical industry, levels of industry research and development spending, the Company's ability to continue to attract and retain qualified personnel, the increased use of biomarkers in clinical trials,  the fixed price nature of contracts or the loss of large contracts, risks associated with acquisitions and investments, the Company's ability to increase order volume, the pace of translation of orders into revenue in late-stage development services, and other factors described in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. The Company undertakes no duty to update any forward looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the Company's expectations.

SOURCE Covance Inc.