BERWYN, Pa., Sept. 9 Encorium Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: ENCO), a full-service multinational contract research organization (CRO) that provides design, development, and management capabilities for clinical trials and patient registries to many of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, today announced the signing of approximately $8.7 million of new business contracts, including selection by a major pharmaceutical company for participation in a swine flu vaccine program.
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Dr. Kai Lindevall, executive chairman stated, "We are delighted to be able to announce these new business awards, despite a very challenging market environment. Our experience and capabilities in the vaccine field have been of paramount importance in our success. We are very proud of being the selected partner for one of the frontline clinical development programs for the swine flu vaccine. In addition, we were also recently entrusted with a avian flue vaccine, as well as other vaccine development programs having, in the aggregate, approximately 12,000 patient subjects. We believe our participation in these studies exemplifies the level of trust and respect that large vaccine companies have in our vaccine expertise and clinical operations.
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"We believe Encorium has developed into one of the strongest medium sized clinical research organizations with expertise in the field of clinical vaccine development. Our recent success in the vaccine field has been substantial, with revenues from vaccine trials increasing by 150% in 2009 versus 2008. As an acknowledgement of our achievements, in April 2009, Encorium was nominated as a finalist for the Second Annual Vaccine Industry Excellence Award.
"The establishment of our Core Vaccine Team has made it possible to enter strategic partnerships with a number of clients. Moving forward, our goal is to grow into the world's leading vaccine franchise and to create a vertical niche expertise in the field of vaccine research, covering pre-clinical support, regulatory consultancy and strategic trial planning. As an integral part of this strategy, the Company has began and plans to continue creating global investigator and clinic networks to strengthen the Company's ability to conduct large scale global phase III vaccine trials. Through these networks it will be possible for us to achieve fast and efficient subject/patient recruitment for vaccine trials globally, which will also ensure a strong local ownership and a strong ethical foundation.
"The Company has also been successful in winning trials in the field of oncology during 2009. Thus far in 2009, Oncology trials constitute the second largest revenue generating therapeutic field after vaccines. We believe our vaccine experience will continue to assist us in gaining new contract wins in the oncology sector, as we will continue to focus, not just on prophylactic vaccines, but also on therapeutic vaccines, which constitute a substantial number of oncology trials and are the fastest growing area within vaccine development. Based on our expertise and success in the field of vaccines and oncology, we believe we are well positioned to further strengthen our market position in these niche areas."
The new business awards announced today mitigate any negative impact to our backlog as reported at June 30, 2009 from foreign currency translations, contract amendments and terminations and revenue recognized. The Company had reported consolidated backlog at June 30, 2009 from continuing operations of $19.6 million which compared to a backlog of $23.5 million at June 30, 2008.
About Encorium Group, Inc.
Encorium Group, Inc. is a global clinical research organization specializing in the design and management of complex clinical trials and Patient Registries for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. The Company's mission is to provide its clients with high quality, full-service support for their biopharmaceutical and medical device development programs. Encorium offers therapeutic expertise, experienced team management and advanced technologies. The Company has drug and biologics development as well as clinical trial experience across a wide variety of therapeutic areas such as infectious diseases, cardiovascular, vaccines, oncology, diabetes endocrinology/metabolism, gene therapy, immunology, neurology, gastroenterology, dermatology, hepatology, women's health and respiratory medicine. Encorium believes that its expertise in the design of complex clinical trials, its therapeutic experience and commitment to excellence, and its application of innovative technologies, offer its clients a means to more quickly and cost effectively move products through the clinical development process.
This press release contains forward-looking statements identified by words such as "estimate," "project," "expect," "intend," "believe," "anticipate" and similar expressions. Those statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from those discussed. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: (i) the risk that we may not have sufficient funds to operate our business; (ii)our success in attracting new business and retaining existing clients and projects; (iii) the size, duration and timing of clinical trials we are currently managing may change unexpectedly; (iv) the termination, delay or cancellation of clinical trials we are currently managing could cause revenues and cash-on-hand to decline unexpectedly; (v) the timing difference between our receipt of contract milestone or scheduled payments and our incurring costs to manage these trials; (vi) outsourcing trends in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries; (vii) the ability to maintain profit margins in a competitive marketplace; (viii) our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel; (ix) the sensitivity of our business to general economic conditions; (x) other economic, competitive, governmental and technological factors affecting our operations, markets, products, services and prices; (xi) announced awards received from existing and potential customers are not definitive until fully negotiated contracts are executed by the parties; (xii) our backlog may not be indicative of future results and may not generate the revenues expected; and (xiii) uncertainties regarding the availability of additional capital and continued listing of our common stock on Nasdaq. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statement. We undertake no obligation to publicly release the result of any revision of these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Please refer to the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008 and the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2009 for a more complete discussion of factors which could cause our actual results and financial position to change.
SOURCE Encorium Group, Inc.
