Constella Group Awarded $42.3 Million Contract to Conduct Clinical Research Studies in Environmental Health.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Constella Group, LLC, a leading global provider of professional health services, has won a $42.3 million contract with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), one of the 27 institutes within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to support its clinical research studies over the next 10 years. While the company has conducted numerous clinical studies for a variety of pharmaceutical and government clients, this marks the first time that it will provide clinical research services to NIEHS. Constella has supported NIEHS continuously since 1986 with a wide range of professional services and solutions.

"We are privileged to further our relationship with NIEHS and our partners as the Institute grows and evolves its clinical research program," said Constella Group Chairman and CEO Donald A. Holzworth. "NIEHS has entrusted us to help it achieve its environmental health mission for a number of years, and we are pleased to play a pivotal role in a transformational program that we anticipate will have key impacts on environmental health, including new developments in gene-environment interactions and in the areas of mechanisms of disease, disease prevention, treatment enhancements and the promotion of healthy lifestyles."

The contract will encompass numerous individual studies to be designed and implemented each year. They are expected to cover a range of areas, including intervention trials, case-control and prospective observational studies. Constella's responsibilities will include study planning and development, facilitation of regulatory processes, subject sampling and recruitment, oversight and monitoring of patient treatments and lifestyle interventions, questionnaire administration, collection and testing of both environmental and biological samples, medical record abstraction, tracing and follow-up, data management, biostatistical analysis, bioinformatics and reporting.

"With the addition of this new work we are now engaged in all aspects of NIEHS' clinical research from data collection to data interpretation," said Chris LeGrand, president of Constella Health Sciences, the business unit leading this contract. "As a long-standing solutions provider in environmental health, we are extremely proud to be a part of this meaningful work."

"The NIEHS clinical research program is an outstanding opportunity to understand how environmental exposures alter human health," said Dr. David Schwartz, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. "Moreover, this program will use environmental sciences to understand the basic mechanisms of disease. The contract with Constella Group will help us achieve these goals."

In securing the new contract, Constella partnered with several other leading organizations, including Duke University Health System, the University of North Carolina Health Care System, Rho, Inc., a contract research organization, and a number of clinical and environmental testing laboratories.

For more information on NIEHS, visit the institute's Web site at http://www.niehs.nih.gov.

About Constella Group, LLC

Constella Group is a leading provider of professional health services worldwide, dedicated to enhancing human health around the world, every day. Constella's three business units--Health Sciences, Futures Group and Clinical Informatics--create and provide health intelligence to help industry and government clients identify and solve critical problems affecting human health. Headquartered in Durham, N.C., the company has approximately 1,100 employees with offices in 35 countries throughout the world. For more information, visit www.constellagroup.com and www.futuresgroup.com.