Ness combines Documentum’s WebTop and Workshare’s Collaborative Document Editing Product – Workshare Synergy - to Accelerate the Production of Regulatory Documents in Serono’s Pre-clinical Development group - and Beyond
For More Information Contact:
David Sussman
# 201-488-7222 x413
david.sussman@ness-usa.com
HACKENSACK, New Jersey – May 20, 2003– Ness Technologies, a Multinational IT professional services leader and partner of Documentum (Nasdaq: DCTM), and Workshare, producer of the collaborative document editing application Workshare Synergy, today announced the successful implementation of a collaborative Web-based Document Management Solution (WDMS) at the Swiss-based Bio-Pharmaceutical Company Serono.
The solution – one of the first production implementations of Documentum 5 with WebTop - facilitates the production of regulatory compliant protocols and reports for Serono’s Pre-clinical Development group. Ness Technologies implemented and helped to validate the solution, which features Workshare Synergy as the enterprise-wide collaborative editing tool for regulatory documents, within five months.
From a technical standpoint, the flexibility and centralized nature of WebTop, combined with Workshare Synergy’s closely integrated architecture and familiar interface, culminated in an application that was rapidly designed, easily rolled-out and effectively maximized the use of the firm’s existing enterprise architectural standards.
The business result of the WDMS is an application that – 1) was adopted easily by the users, 2) increased the velocity of regulatory documents in the pipeline, 3) reduced the risk associated with collaboration as a result of fully auditable document viewing, and 4) improved the quality of the documents going to regulatory bodies by providing common templates, references, and search locations. Serono’s estimates indicate that organization-wide, thousands of days per year could be gained in productive time by using this advanced solution.
“Pharmaceutical companies have for years demanded an easy-to-implement, high-quality means of protecting intellectual property, producing 21 CFR Part 11 compliant documents, and reducing the administrative burden associated with the efforts of the research and development communities,” commented Ben Tandowski, President of Ness Technologies. “Serono’s combination of Documentum 5 and Workshare Synergy is a tangible example that solutions exist to meet these demands – and that Ness possesses a unique business knowledge and technical expertise to effectively and rapidly implement these solutions.”
Workshare’s unique position – established over its six-year history of providing document content collaboration applications to professional document users – enables the Workshare Synergy team to anticipate and build tools that consistently meet the legal and regulatory needs of the pharmaceutical industry. Workshare’s close tie with Documentum serves to strengthen this exceptional position.
Positioned as a leader in Systems Integration for the Life Sciences industry, Ness participated in the Alpha- and Beta-Test program for Documentum 5 with WebTop. This early experience with the Documentum Tools - coupled with Ness 17-year history serving the pharmaceutical industry - enabled Ness to quickly customize WebTop – using Documentum’s Web Development Kit (WDK), to fit Serono’s business processes and integrate the Workshare Synergy client-side application.
Regarding the complete enterprise adoption of the Workshare Synergy product and the success of the Documentum 5 implementation, Tracey Miller, Pharmaceutical Global Account Manager for Workshare, remarked, "This is a key milestone for Workshare, giving commercial and technical validation to our drive to deliver valued solutions for the life sciences sector."
Based on the success of this application, Ness and Workshare are currently expanding the functionality of Serono’s WDMS to serve many other mission-critical and non-regulated functions.
Ness Technologies, Workshare, and Serono highlighted the capabilities of Documentum 5, Synergy, and Serono’s application at Momentum Lyon 2003, Documentum’s user conference between May 12th and 15th.
About Ness Technologies
Ness Technologies is a global provider of innovative IT solutions, with approximately 3,800 professionals based in the US, Europe, Asia and Israel. In the US, Ness specializes in the custom development of web-based business-critical information systems, having completed nearly 400 projects within its 17-year history. Ness' customer base consists primarily of Global 2000 companies across multiple industries, including pharmaceuticals and healthcare, telecommunications, media and publishing, and insurance. Ness has broad technical partnerships, enabling development of customized applications on a "technology-independent" basis. The firm currently has practice areas for, Business Intelligence, Content Management, Web Services, Enterprise Portals, and Strategic Services. For more information, please visit www.ness.com and www.ness-usa.com
About Workshare
Workshare is an industry leader in developing and bringing premier document content collaboration software for the global enterprise to a wide variety of vertical markets. The company is known for its revolutionary software that enables effective and efficient management of collaborative changes on the content of documents. Workshare’s proprietary technology positions them as the foremost authority in the field of document content collaboration. For more information about Workshare’s products, visit http://www.workshare.com/.
About Documentum
Documentum provides enterprise content management (ECM) solutions that enable organizations to unite teams, content and associated business processes. Documentum's integrated set of content, compliance and collaboration solutions support the way people work, from initial discussion and planning through design, production, marketing, sales, service and corporate administration. With a single platform, Documentum enables people to collaboratively create, manage, deliver and archive the content that drives business operations, from documents and discussions to email, Web pages, records and rich media. The Documentum platform makes it possible for companies to distribute all of this content in multiple languages, across internal and external systems, applications and user communities. As a result, Documentum's customers, which include thousands of the world's most successful organizations, harness corporate knowledge, accelerate time to market, increase customer satisfaction, enhance supply chain efficiencies and reduce operating costs, improving their overall competitive advantage. For more information, visit Documentum on the Web at http://www.documentum.com/.
About Serono
Serono is a global biotechnology leader. The Company has six recombinant products on the market, Gonal-F®, Luveris®, Ovidrel®/Ovitrelle®, Rebif®, Serostim® and Saizen® (Luveris® is not approved in the USA). In addition to being the world leader in reproductive health, Serono has strong market positions in neurology, metabolism and growth. The Company's research programs are focused on growing these businesses and on establishing new therapeutic areas. Currently, there are over 30 projects in development.
In 2002 Serono achieved worldwide revenues of US$1.546 billion, and a net income of US$321 million, making it the third largest biotech company in the world. The Company operates in 45 countries, and its products are sold in over 100 countries. Bearer shares of Serono S.A., the holding company, are traded on the virt-x (SEO) and its American Depositary Shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange (SRA).
