Acurian's Patient Panel Eclipses Eight Million Mark; Chronic, Ambulatory Conditions Continue to Dominate Panel Seeking Healthcare Information and Clinical Trial Opportunities.

HORSHAM, Pa. -- Acurian, Inc., a full-service provider of site and patient recruitment solutions, announced today that its proprietary patient panel now contains over eight million people in the U.S. who are actively seeking information about clinical trials and emerging medical therapies.

This represents a 33% percent increase in less than a year. The company announced last January that its patient panel had reached the six million mark. Acurian uses the opted-in panel to source study candidates for clinical trials across a wide variety of indications on behalf of a pharmaceutical company or Contract Research Organization.

Organized by therapy and geography, the panel provides Acurian with a direct channel for matching motivated people with research studies being conducted near their homes, eliminating the three common hurdles of patient recruitment: motivation, disease state, and site proximity.

The panel's strongest disease concentrations remain chronic, ambulatory conditions such as diabetes, arthritis, asthma, pain, insomnia, incontinence, COPD, osteoporosis, psoriasis, and more.

"The growth of our panel over the last ten months is noteworthy," said Mark Eisenach, CEO of Acurian. "To see a rising interest in clinical trial participation is a critical indicator not just for our business, but for the entire drug development industry. There is still much work to do in terms of educating the public, but we see our success as a sign that the message is getting through."

Clinical trial participation is vital to the development of new products. According to the most recent Parexel Statistical Sourcebook, only 10% of the U.S. population has participated in a clinical trial, yet polls indicate that a majority of people would consider participating if ever asked. The impact could be substantial. For example, the National Cancer Institute estimates that if only a quarter of cancer patients participated in clinical trials instead of the current 4-5%, cancer drugs taking three to five years to reach the general population could do so in 18 months.

Acurian will be hosting a Webinar on December 1, 2004 entitled, "The Need to Educate Study Volunteers - A Public Health Issue," featuring guest speaker Ken Getz from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development and CISCRP. For registration information, please contact Scott Connor at [e-mail].

About Acurian

Acurian is a leading, full-service provider of clinical trial patient and investigator recruitment solutions for the life sciences industry. Through its proprietary patient panel, exclusive pharmacy partnerships, and centralized screening platform, Acurian is able to identify, contact, prescreen, and refer interested study candidates, as well as profile and recruit experienced investigators, quickly and affordably. Since 1998, Acurian has helped accelerate more than 125 clinical trials for over 30 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including 8 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the world. Acurian's investors include Euclid SR Partners, ProQuest Investments, JP Morgan Partners, CDP Capital Technology Ventures, Flatiron Partners & Merck Capital Ventures. Additional information about Acurian is available at http://www.acurian.com.

Acurian is a trademark of Acurian, Inc. All other names and terms are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.