Verispan's Vector One(R): Januvia Experiences Significant Growth.

YARDLEY, Pa. -- According to Verispan's Vector One[R]: National (VONA), prescriptions for the diabetes drug Januvia have grown nearly threefold between the first week of 2007 and the week ending July 20, making it one of the fastest-growing drugs in the diabetes market.

Januvia had nearly 60,000 prescriptions during the week ending July 20, more than 2,500 of which were new-patient prescriptions. New-patient prescriptions are defined as prescriptions filled by patients who have not previously had a prescription dispensed for a product within the defined market. VONA reported switching to Januvia from other diabetes therapies, including metformin (21% of all switches), Avandia (17%) and Actos (13%).

Third-party payers were used to pay for 90% of dispensings for Januvia, with the remaining 10% being evenly split between cash payers and Medicaid, according to Verispan's Vector One[R]: Payer.

Januvia's marketer, Merck, has made a significant investment in e-promotion. According to Verispan's ePromotion Audit, Merck was responsible for nearly one-fifth of the money spent on e-promotion industrywide in the first quarter of 2007 and was the number one company in terms of e-promotion expenditures. Merck spent approximately one-fifth of its e-promotion dollars on Januvia activities.

For more information about Verispan's Vector One[R] database or ePromotion Audit, please contact Verispan at [phone].

About Vector One[R]

Verispan's Vector One[R] delivers the True Measure of Healthcare, projecting both traditional prescription metrics and True Patient Measures at every level, from prescriber to nation. These precise measures are delivered in record time for sales representatives and managers, brand managers and market research departments to act and make a difference. Reports are available each week for data through the previous Friday, and monthly reports are available 10 to 14 days post-period, a clear improvement over competitors' delivery timelines.

Vector One's True Patient Measures utilize de-identified patient records to track patients across time, across pharmacies, across payers and across providers, and to uniquely pinpoint projected new patient starts, product switches, continuing patients, indication-specific utilization, co-morbid conditions, concomitant use, titration, persistency and a host of other powerful metrics at the individual prescriber level.

Since it includes actual dispensing data from a near census of the nation's pharmacies, the Vector One[R] projection methodology accounts for activity that is invisible to competing services, which only cover two-thirds of stores. Vector One[R] projects third-party, Medicaid and cash activity with unparalleled precision, resulting in greater accuracy at the prescriber level.

For more information about the Vector One[R] suite of data solutions or Verispan's longitudinal patient-centric database, please contact Chris Gilhorn at [phone] or [e-mail].

About the ePromotion Audit

Verispan's ePromotion Audit offers clients competitive insight about ePromotion activity across the entire pharmaceutical industry and provides clients with the opportunity to integrate ePromotion into the total promotional picture. The audit surveys over 4,000 office- based physicians from 19 specialties on a monthly basis. Physicians are asked to report on any ePromotion activity in which they participated that month. Once collected, data is projected by region and specialty and then summed to a national total. The audit provides clients with data needed for quantitative ePromotion analysis, including types of activity, volume of activity, spending and reach.

Verispan: The True Measure of Healthcare

Verispan, a healthcare informatics joint venture of Quintiles Transnational Corp. and McKesson Corp., provides a broad array of information products and services to the healthcare industry, including sales targeting and compensation products; market research audits; healthcare profiles; comprehensive managed care offerings; data integration, warehousing and mining; data analysis and consulting; direct mail; list services; disease management studies; clinical trial investigator targeting and protocol recruitment evaluation; healthcare outcomes; and cost/benefit analyses, among many others. Verispan is also the nation's leading provider of patient-centric longitudinal data, with dozens of products used by clients spanning the industry.

Headquartered in Yardley, Pa., Verispan employs over 500 dedicated healthcare information professionals. The company's Web site is www.verispan.com.