SAS Life Sciences Expert Named to CDISC Board of Directors

-- Dr. Edward Helton elected to three-year term for medical and biopharmaceutical data standards organization --

CARY, N.C. (Feb. 3, 2003) - SAS, the leader in business intelligence, announced today that Dr. Edward Helton, the company's chief strategist of regulatory and biomedical affairs, has been elected to a three-year term on the board of directors for the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC).

CDISC is an open, multidisciplinary, non-profit organization committed to the development of worldwide standards to support the electronic acquisition, exchange, submission and archiving of clinical trials data and metadata for medical and biopharmaceutical product development. The CDISC mission is to lead the development of global, vendor-neutral, platform-independent standards to improve data quality and accelerate product development in the pharmaceutical industry.

"We value the depth of expertise that SAS and Ed Helton will bring to CDISC's board of directors," said Steve Ruberg, chairman of the board for CDISC. "SAS' support for our organization is important in achieving our standardization goals."

Helton's election to the CDISC board of directors deepens SAS' already substantial commitment to the international standards group. SAS supports CDISC as a corporate sponsor, and David Handelsman, SAS clinical research and development strategist, serves as a member of CDISC's Industry Advisory Board. This group provides support for CDISC's strategic direction by organizing advisory meetings, participating in working teams and task forces, supporting the strategic plan, assisting in fundraising, and enhancing the organization's public image.

"SAS has long supported the development of open, globally accepted data standards in all the industries we touch," said Helton. "Through open clinical trials standards, SAS and other software vendors can create applications that work seamlessly with those of other vendors, reducing the costs and development time associated with bringing new medications to the patients who need them."

In addition to leading SAS' strategy for regulatory and biomedical affairs, Helton has held diverse corporate positions throughout the life sciences industry, including director of research and regulatory affairs, vice president of regulatory affairs and senior strategic scientist. Helton has extensive experience in working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and international regulatory authorities, serving as director of the Drug Research and Evaluation Program and senior research chemist at the National Center for Toxicological Research, FDA. As chief of clinical research at Brooke Army Medical Center, he was chairman of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and clinical research. Before joining SAS, Helton was an associate professor of research at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

Helton earned his doctorate in endocrinology, biochemistry and cellular physiology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has more than 20 years of experience in the design and FDA submission of pharmacokinetic, efficacy and safety data of recombinant drugs, synthetic peptides, endogenous products and low molecular weight lipophilic xenobiotics.

For more information about CDISC, visit their Web site at www.cdisc.org.

About SAS

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