Acurian Announces Record Quarter for Concurrent Patient Recruitment Protocols Under Management.

HORSHAM, Pa. -- Solid 2004 Concludes with Considerable Demand for Trial Acceleration Services across Multiple Therapeutic Areas, Sponsors

Acurian, Inc., a full-service provider of site and patient recruitment solutions, announced today that the company managed 35 patient and site recruitment protocols last quarter, a new company record.

These trial acceleration projects included direct-to-patient recruitment services for multiple chronic conditions within the areas of urology, endocrinology, cardiovascular, psychiatry, respiratory, and oncology. Projects also included site recruitment services for trials seeking highly specialized yet experienced investigators to run demanding protocols.

For the year, Acurian reported overall strong demand for its menu of recruitment services by adding 22 new customers to the Acurian roster and welcoming back 11 repeat customers. Additional milestones for the year included a 30% increase in its proprietary patient panel, continued demand for pharmacy-based recruitment with nearly a third of all projects utilizing retail pharmacy outreach, and extensive new development and uptake of the company's Web-based screening, tracking and reporting platform, Recruitment Manager.

"We were very pleased with the number of projects under our care at the end of last year," stated Mark Eisenach, Acurian's CEO. "Only through proven, efficient processes and a solid recruitment strategy could a company of our size manage this level of business without missing a beat. It's a testament to our people and to the customers who trust us with their mission-critical studies, as well as to the simple elegance of our direct-to-patient approach -- one that we will continue to leverage in order to grow the business and help our customers succeed."

Acurian maintains a proprietary patient panel of over eight million people in the United States who have explicitly requested to be contacted with health and trial information, enabling the company to quickly match sponsor trials with viable study candidates.

"Acurian is leading the way in full-service trial acceleration by offering a menu of recruitment services supported by industry-experienced project managers and technology that clearly shines the light on recruitment ROI," continued Eisenach. "But at the end of the day, it's the millions of motivated patients under our auspices that has enamored our customer base and will continue to attract the attention of new sponsors and CROs when they need enrollment assistance."

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.