2008

Contur chosen to develop customized LIMS-platform for Phadia AB - 2008-10-28

Contur Software has been chosen by Phadia AB, world leader in allergy and autoimmunity diagnostics, to develop and implement a customized technology platform for laboratory information management, QIMS.

The development and implementation project constitutes phase 2 of Phadia's mission to replace the company's existing laboratory data system PRODLAB with a customized software solution. Phase 1 of the project, which included analysis of feature requests, system specification, development and delivery of data models and prototypes for user interface, was completed by Contur Software in March 2008.

The informatics platform will consist of a tailor made LIMS-system that can handle Phadia's highly regulated production environment with strong requirements on traceability of reagents and batches, and advanced calculations such as analysis of variance, curve fitting and concentration calculations. The system will be integrated with Phadia's existing SAP R3-system as well as with their bio bank system Diagnostic Sample System and other smaller components.

The extensive development and implementation project is estimated to be completed by the end of 2009. Initially, the system will be used in Phadia's quality control, quality assurance and parts of manufacturing and R&D at the headquarters in Uppsala, Sweden. In the longer term other facilities within the company may be involved, for example the Allergon site in southern Sweden and the Autoimmunity site in Freiburg, Germany.

Parallel to the QIMS-project, Contur Software will also implement ConturELN adding value to the informatics platform. Both QIMS and ConturELN will be important components in Phadia's operations and will lever the efficiency and productivity, increase access to information, reduce risks as well as enhancing the quality of data storage.

About Phadia AB
Phadia develops, manufactures and markets complete blood test systems to support the clinical diagnosis and monitoring of allergy, asthma and autoimmune diseases.

Phadia has remained the world leader in its field for more than 25 years and employs 1,300 people in 21 countries around the world. For more information please visit www.phadia.com

ConturELN supports multi-lab collaboration between Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Princeton, Yale and Ohio State Universities - 2008-10-06

Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan is home to an extensive array of top-notch research centers and laboratories. It is one of the world's foremost centers for medical and scientific training based on a commitment to excellence in research.

At Mount Sinai's Sealfon Laboratory, scientists study and model the mechanisms of cellular decoding of extracellular inputs. The laboratory has now implemented the electronic lab notebook system ConturELN to be used in the program for research on immune modeling and experimentation called PRIME.

PRIME is funded by the US National Institutes of Health and is a research collaboration between Mount Sinai School of Medicine and three other top universities in the US; Princeton, Yale and Ohio State, as well as with the BioAnalytics Group LLC, a New Jersey-based company that offers scientific software products and services for pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, biotechs, and universities.

The extensive collaboration between the different research groups participating in PRIME is facilitated by ConturELN's multicenter/multilab functionality. As a result, PRIME researchers (experimentalists and modelers) in different labs can collaborate on research projects and share results.

About Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM) in Manhattan is one of the world's foremost centers for medical and scientific training. MSSM is chartered by the Mount Sinai Hospital and over the years, Mount Sinai has built up a tremendous reputation for the excellence of its patient care and clinical research programs. For more information please visit www.mountsinai.org

Mats Kihlén appointed Informatics Specialist at Contur Software - 2008-09-29

Contur Software is pleased to announce that Mr. Mats Kihlén has been appointed Informatics Specialist, effective September 29, 2008.

With an MSc in Engineering Physics (1988) and more than 17 years of experience in computational chemistry and cheminformatics in Biotech and Big Pharma, as well as development of advanced tools for searching and navigation of research data, Mr. Kihlén is today one of the most internationally renowned personalities in the industry.

Previously Head of Research Informatics at Biovitrum, Mr.Kihlén was the conceptual architect of the ELN technology, a joint development project between Biovitrum and Contur Software. He was awarded ?project of the year? for his accomplishments regarding the introduction of ELNs at Biovitrum.

"I am happy to welcome Mats Kihlén to Contur. He has substantial knowledge from the industry and has a true customer oriented focus. Mats will use his experience from the industry to assist new and existing customers to Contur", says Martin Wattin, CEO Contur.

Mr. Kihlén is currently also CIO, Head of Research Informatics, at iNovacia AB, a company providing technical expertise and drug discovery experience solutions to Biotech and Pharmaceutical companies world-wide, and will share his time between the two companies.

Danish Health Protection Agency replaces paper laboratory notebook with ConturELN - 2008-09-26

Contur has been selected by the Danish institute for infectious disease control, Statens Serum Institut (SSI), to deploy the electronic lab notebook system ConturELN. With this implementation, SSI in Denmark adds to the growing number of health protection agencies benefiting from ConturELN. The agreement also confirms that the flexible architecture and robustness of ConturELN make it especially suitable for this type of R&D intensive lab work at expert establishments.

SSI operates as a market-oriented production and service enterprise under the Danish Ministry of Health and Prevention. Their mission is to prevent and control infectious diseases and congenital disorders among Danish citizens, as well as biological threats. As SSI´s duties are partly integrated with the national Danish health service, they are under scrutiny from Danish authorities who put a very high demand on research documentation, traceability, and quality throughout their R&D process.

SSI pursues an active patenting policy in its core research areas, and here ConturELN will play an important part in laboratory documentation as evidence in possible future lawsuits regarding patent rights. ConturELN will also strengthen SSI´s on-site sharing of remote data, provide a search functionality, as well as bring major time savings as users can skip the laborious working procedures connected with old fashioned paper lab-books.

About Statens Serum Institut
Statens Serum Institut (SSI) is a public enterprise operating as a market-oriented production and service enterprise under the Danish Ministry of Health and Prevention. Their mission is to prevent and control infectious diseases and congenital disorders among Danish citizens, as well as biological threats. Research is conducted within areas such as microbiology, immunology and epidemiology. For more information please visit www.ssi.dk

Electronic lab notebooks part of insurance company's risk preventing work - 2008-05-16

Many research and development companies still rely on paper laboratory notebooks to record, and protect experimental results. This manual procedure is not only inefficient but also offers poor IP protection. As an example there is the issue with missing data since dry glue may cause print-outs to fall out and disappear. Also, there are legibility issues due to variations in people?s handwriting.

ConturELN - an electronic lab notebook - address these security risks by enabling R&D companies to collect, share and protect experiment data more efficiently. The ConturELN is an electronic laboratory notebook system that collects, shares and protects relevant data in laboratories. Built-in features of ConturELN, such as digital signatures, help any R&D intensive company establish a secure signing and witnessing process of experiments as well as offering higher quality of recordkeeping and archiving, while maintaining a high level of IP security.

Chubb Insurance is one of the world's leading insurance companies and is listed on the New York stock exchange (NYSE). Chubb offers extensive insurance solutions for different business operations around the world and has special insurance solutions for the risks faced by life science companies.

"We are constantly working together with our clients to help them with risk preventing actions", says Wouter Wissink, Loss Control Manager Northern Europe at Chubb Insurance. "Saving the data in electronic lab notebooks instead of paper notebooks is one way of minimizing the risk of a huge loss to this kind of companies. We always recommend our clients to apply this way of working with their research results."

"Recognition from one of the world?s largest insurance companies that using an electronic lab notebook facilitates processes in the life science industry and simplifies risk management is of course very favourable for Contur", says Martin Wattin, CEO Contur.

About Chubb Insurance
Chubb Insurance Company of Europe S.A. (Chubb Insurance) provides specialist commercial and personal lines products through independent brokers. It is part of the NYSE-listed Chubb Corporation. With more than 30 offices in twelve countries, Chubb Insurance consistently earns high ratings for financial strength from the leading credit rating agencies.
Further information on Chubb can be found at www.chubb.com

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DyStar, world leading textile solutions provider, implements ConturELN - 2008-04-15

Contur Software is pleased to announce that DyStar Textilfarben GmbH, a world leading supplier of textile dyes, auxiliaries and services, has selected ConturELN for their laboratory notebook initiative.

Formed in 1995 as a specialist in textile coloration, DyStar has transformed itself into a full solutions provider offering a full range of auxiliaries and colorants. Operating in an innovative industry such as the fashion industry, where new materials, new colours and new effects are the catalysts that spark new fashion trends, DyStar invest heavily in R&D focusing on the synthesis of new colorants and textile auxiliaries as well as dye intermediates. Ecology is also a central focus of DyStar's R&D ambitions, striving to develop ecologically improved products and solutions for the textile industry.

DyStar's research and development is characterized by ongoing cost pressure, an increasing regulatory environment, and accelerating internationalization of the business. At the same time there are high market expectations to deliver the R&D pipeline faster to the market. Consequently DyStar decided for strategic investments to improve efficiency and to implement an electronic laboratory notebook system (ELN) to optimize the R&D process. The ConturELN system was chosen after a thorough evaluation and a pilot project.

Dr. Christian Schumacher, Global Innovation & Technology Manager Textile Solutions at DyStar, says: "We chose ConturELN from Contur because they had the best offer in terms of functionality, user-friendliness and cost. The key benefits with ConturELN are the user-friendliness and the integration of chemistry intelligence, and the feedback from our users has been very positive, both from skilled IT users as well as from users with less profound IT skills."

Mr. Thomas Rozlucki, Vice President Products at Contur Software, says: "Dystar's choice of ConturELN again shows the applicability of ConturELN to a wide variety of industries and scientific disciplines due to its flexibility and ease of use. Contur?s chemistry tools have also been designed with broad application across different types of chemistry and we are pleased that they meet the requirements of Dystar's chemists."

Initially, ConturELN will be implemented at DyStar's current R&D centers in Manchester (UK), Frankfurt am Main and Leverkusen (Germany), and at a later stage in R&D centers in Asia as well. ConturELN will complement DyStar's modern service labs and function as the main research documentation tool for R&D scientists and lab technicians in research and product development. According to Dr. Schumacher, the main target improvement areas for implementing ConturELN are better knowledge management, faster documentation and efficient sharing of information between the different sites.

About DyStar Textilfarben GmbH
DyStar is a world-leading supplier of textile dyes, auxiliaries and services for the textile and leather industries. Textile mills (dyer and finisher) worldwide, manufacturing textiles for well-known brands such as Lacoste, Nike, adidas, Puma and WalMart, rely on DyStars? innovative products and technologies. Headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, DyStar employs approx. 4,000 worldwide. For more information about DyStar, visit its website at www.dystar.com.

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Adimab, Inc. chooses ConturELN as their laboratory notebook system - 2008-02-14

Contur Software is pleased to announce that Adimab, Inc., a pioneer in the integration of antibody discovery, maturation and biomanufacturing, has selected ConturELN as their sole laboratory notebook system.

Focusing on research in human therapeutic antibody discovery, Adimab sought a comprehensive data management solution that could easily store all of its research data in a secure, centralized and easily accessible format. ConturELN, Contur Software's versatile electronic laboratory notebook system, integrates seamlessly to deliver the high level of flexibility and accessibility demanded by Adimab's scientists.

Dr. Michael Feldhaus, Senior Director of Antibody Engineering at Adimab, Inc. says, "Greater than 75 percent of our data is already in an electronic format. It is hard to archive all this data with the experimental design and set up. ConturELN offers a format where all data being generated by different scientific functions is available to anyone in the organization. This facilitates our integrated approach to antibody discovery, maturation and biomanufacturing - fostering continual collaboration between different development teams."

Dr. Feldhaus had previously investigated other different ELN software packages. ConturELN represented an uncomplicated solution, easy to use, and at a reasonable price. Other packages had many "add ons", functionality that Adimab simply did not need or want to pay for.

According to Dr. Feldhaus, the implementation of ConturELN brings productivity gains thanks to easier access to data anytime anywhere and greatly improved quality of the data entries. "Some of Adimab's projects involve scientists in research facilities on the East and West Coast of the United States. ConturELN allows data access 24/7."

Mr. Thomas Rozlucki, Vice President Products at Contur Software says, "The installation of ConturELN at Adimab proves that small and middle size biotech companies can easily implement a secure and robust ELN solution with minimum effort and at an affordable price."

About Adimab, Inc.
Adimab is changing the discovery, maturation and production of therapeutic human antibodies. By integrating all aspects of antibody discovery and developing sophisticated screening methods, Adimab can rapidly select for high affinity antibodies that also behave well in a formulation and manufacturing context. Our proprietary library design and presentation technology allows us to discover full-length human antibodies with broad epitope coverage and high affinity faster than any current technology.
For more information, visit www.adimab.com.

ConturELN and Accelrys' SciTegic Pipeline Pilot integrated in customer environment - 2008-02-04

Contur and Accelrys have successfully integrated their respective scientific platforms, ConturELN and SciTegic Pipeline Pilot, at a customer site.

SciTegic Pipeline Pilot is used by over 300 companies worldwide to streamline the integration and analysis of the vast quantities of data flooding the research and development informatics world. The software allows researchers to graphically compose data processing workflows, known as protocols, using hundreds of different configurable components for operations such as data retrieval and manipulation, property calculations, computational filtering, and reporting. Integrated technologies are also available from over 30 third-party software companies that are members of the Accelrys Independent Software Vendor program, giving SciTegic Pipeline Pilot users access to a wide array of additional tools.

The joint Accelrys/Contur customer uses ConturELN as their day-to-day research documentation tool. One of their research centres produce large quantities of data that needs to be processed in a specific way. By integrating ConturELN with SciTegic Pipeline Pilot they can now take full advantage of the systems' combined capabilities. The ConturELN toolbox now contains a separate section that communicates directly with SciTegic Pipeline Pilot.


About Accelrys, Inc.
Accelrys develops and commercializes scientific business intelligence software for the integration, mining, analysis, modeling and simulation, management and interactive reporting of scientific data. Our solutions are used by biologists, chemists, materials scientists, and information technology professionals for product design as well as drug discovery and development. Our technology and services are designed to meet the needs of today's leading research and development organizations including leading commercial, government and academic organizations. Many of the largest pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemical, and petroleum companies worldwide use our solutions. Accelrys is headquartered in San Diego, California.
For more information about Accelrys, visit its website at www.accelrys.com.

Contur signs agreement with Phadia - 2008-01-21

Contur has signed an agreement with Phadia AB, world leader in allergy and autoimmunity diagnostics and formerly known as Pharmacia Diagnostics AB, for phase 1 of the development of their new information technology platform for laboratory information management.

Phadia has worked for some time on the replacement of the company's existing laboratory data system PRODLAB. Initially the objective was to find a commercial LIMS-system that would fit Phadia's needs. However, Phadia's essential requirements such as traceability of reagents and batches, and advanced calculations such as analysis of variance, curve fitting and concentration calculations, were found to be too intricate for a traditional LIMS-system. Having evaluated the systems available on the market Phadia decided to find a software partner that could develop and implement customized software according to their demands.

"Contur has a very nice track record for delivering customized software solutions and that was one of the reasons for us choosing them as a supplier", says Tobias Wilnier, Global IS/IT Application Coordinator at Phadia.

Through this collaboration, Phadia will benefit from Contur?s extensive software expertise and knowledge in scientific software.

"Phadia's confidence in Contur is a great acknowledgement and we look forward to work with them on this project", says Martin Wattin, CEO Contur.

Phase 1 of the development project includes analysis of feature requests, system specification, development and delivery of data models and prototypes for user interface as well as an estimation of the cost of software development.

About Phadia AB
Phadia develops, manufactures and markets complete blood test systems to support the clinical diagnosis and monitoring of allergy, asthma and autoimmune diseases. Headquartered in Uppsala, Sweden, Phadia has a total of 1150 employees world-wide. The research and development at Phadia is carried out in Uppsala and Freiburg, Germany, and involves a wide range of disciplines. More than 3,000 laboratories in 60 countries use the company's products. www.phadia.com

Contur grants GxP audit by leading European biopharma company and producer of protein based drugs - 2008-01-16

Contur has always endeavoured to produce high quality software according to GxP standards and enabling CFR part 11 compliance. This was confirmed when a leading European biopharma company and producer of protein based drugs conducted an audit on Contur recently.

The result showed that Contur produces, maintains and supports its software in compliance with high quality standards. Contur?s quality system has a content and structure that match well the GxP and CFR part 11 compliance requirements for a vendor supplying software to the pharmaceutical industry.

"We are very pleased with the results of this audit. It shows that the quality system that we have put in place meets the exacting requirements of the pharmaceutical industry", says Dr. Andrew Mott, Quality Manager at Contur.

Note: The term GxP is a generalization of quality guidelines, predominantly used in the pharmaceutical industry.

2007

ConturELN implemented at SGC Toronto site - 2007-09-18

The Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) in Toronto, Canada, has implemented ConturELN to further enhance research documentation and increase productivity.

The SGC aims to determine the three dimensional structures of proteins of medical relevance. Scientists conduct research focused on structural genomics, understanding the relationships between proteins and the ligands that they bind.

"We needed an electronic lab notebook system to maintain a central repository for the experimental records of our 70+ scientists. ConturELN has very good integration with Windows and that is one of the reasons why we chose to implement it", says Dr. Matthieu Schapira, Principal Investigator Research Informatics at the Structural Genomics Consortium in Toronto.

The deployment of ConturELN at SGC Toronto has been successful. Dr. Schapira ranks the most important improvements after the implementation to be improved record keeping, as experiments are saved and accessible years later even if user moved to another company, easier and more rapid access of experiments for PIs and management, as well as the opportunity for users to better organize their experimental records.

The SGC operates out of the Universities of Oxford and Toronto and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. As ConturELN already has been deployed at the fellow research centres in the UK and Sweden this implementation will help increase collaboration and productivity between scientists and projects at the different sites.

About SGC
The SGC aims to determine the three dimensional structures of proteins of medical relevance and place them in the public domain without restriction. The SGC operates out of the Universities of Oxford and Toronto and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, and works on structures of proteins from its funder-created Target List of ~2,000 proteins, which comprises human proteins associated with diseases such as cancer, diabetes, inflammation, and genetic and epigenetic diseases, as well as proteins from human parasites such as those that cause malaria. For more information please visit www.thesgconline.com.

ACE BioSciences selects ConturELN - 2007-06-20

ACE BioSciences, based in Odense in Denmark, is an emerging pharmaceutical company focused on developing novel protein-based vaccines and antibodies to address infectious diseases. The company has unique expertise in the extraction and analysis of the cell surface proteins used by pathogens (e.g. bacteria, viruses and fungi) to interact with and infect human host cells.

ACE BioSciences has now implemented ConturELN to increase efficiency and throughput in its operations.

"Entering the clinic needs extremely well documented research", says Petra Schrotz-King, Chief Scientific Officer at ACE BioSciences. "Also, when working together with different contract research organizations and consultancy organizations, information has to be easily accessible and traceable as well as approachable from different angles. ConturELN makes research documentation and information available for us in a very fast and efficient way."

ConturELN was selected after a long evaluation process. One of the most important factors was that it could be implemented and integrated right away into the daily laboratory process without disturbing or taking too much time and effort. "Known companies and institutions that had already made use of the system were very positive about it and we can only agree on its ease of use, its ease of implementation and its advantages over lab books", says Petra Schrotz-King.

According to Petra Schrotz-King the most important improvements after implementing ConturELN are: Immediate storage of data, electronically accessible for all users and the possibility to search for data electronically. She also sees key benefits in the way Ace BioSciences' IP protection will be enforced to ConturELN. "Specific templates do enforce a more detailed documentation; important details are more likely to be documented. We do trust the electronic system and do not have a hybrid system where we would keep printed backups as well. We trust in the acceptance of electronic data storage regarding IP issues."

Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre introduces ConturELN - 2007-06-05

The University of Edinburgh is one of UK's most prestigious universities with an international reputation for innovative research in a broad range of disciplines. The Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre (ECRC) has several main themes spanning clinical, basic and integrative cancer care research.

ECRC researchers undertake many different types of experiments and projects with some of them running for long periods of time. The Centre has now installed ConturELN to facilitate the whole research documentation process.

"We felt we needed to use electronic lab books for a number of reasons", says Dr. Nick Gilbert, Research Scientist and responsible for the implementation of ConturELN. "Because we do lots of different experiments within a number of projects it can be difficult to find the data for individual parts of an experiment as traditional lab books are organised chronologically. ConturELN has made it possible for us to organise our data more easily and for us to store the data in a single location. This has made our data so much easier to search and find."

The centre's principle investigators comprise molecular biologists, cell biologists, oncologists, biochemists and pharmacologists. They are now also able to share data between individuals working on the same project, which was not readily possible before.

"One of the key benefits with ConturELN is the ease of use", says Nick Gilbert. "It was very easy to get started and the product is very user friendly. The researchers using it think it is great. Now that we have successfully started using the ELN we will encourage other research groups to try it."

"We are pleased that the ECRC recognised some of the key strengths of ConturELN: Ease of use and its applicability to a broad range of disciplines", says Fredrik Rosengren, Vice President, Consulting Services at Contur. "ConturELN will definitely help the Centre to deliver internationally-competitive cutting-edge research."

Vaccine development organization streamlines documentation with ConturELN - 2007-05-08

Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation is in the process of evaluating and implementing ConturELN in its labs in order to streamline research documentation and facilitate information sharing.

Aeras develops candidate tuberculosis (TB) vaccines in its own laboratories and pursues joint research and development activities with other leading TB vaccine developers around the world. With ConturELN, different people working on the same project will be able to contribute to the same experiment without having to perform cross-references, templates of experiments can be used on a regular basis and experiments can be structured according to projects.

"This is a very good example of how modern R&D organizations can increase data quality, promote collaboration, and at the same time improve everyday efficiency by eliminating manual procedures", says Fredrik Rosengren, Vice President, Consulting Services at Contur.

ConturRDC - A central and secure repository for your instrument/analytical data - 2007-05-07

Most R&D professionals recognize a situation where raw data files - which are not typically stored in a lab notebook - lay about scattered on instrument computers and shared drives, for example Micro array data, HPLC, NMR, Trace, MOLDI etc. To address the raw data situation most R&D organizations are experiencing, we have developed ConturRDC, which is an add-on to ConturELN.

ConturRDC can be used either as a stand-alone system or together with ConturELN. For our existing ConturELN customers, ConturRDC will appear as a new section in the experiment editor section toolbox. The raw data section will provide tools to collect the raw data and display vital meta-data (unique ID for raw data package, data type, instrument ID, operator etc) and hash value for IP protection purposes. To save expensive database disc pace, the raw data will not be stored in the ConturELN database, but rather on a separate file sever disc space.

Affibody brings together their research documentation with ConturELN - 2007-05-02

Affibody is a leading biotech company in the emerging field of molecular imaging and targeted therapeutics within the cancer area. Research spans the production of target proteins, selection and screening of Affibody® Molecules, characterization of Affibody® Molecules and pharmacokinetics.

Facing the fact that important research was documented in hundreds of paper laboratory notebooks, which were difficult to access, Affibody had an escalating need for an electronic lab notebook system that could help with the storing, indexing and retrieval of experimental data. Affibody, still being a rather young company (founded in 1998) had reached the point where they could no longer depend on the memory of co-workers in order to find the experimental data supporting decisions that had to be made.

"We wanted to have an ELN system that put the user in focus", says Finn Dunås, Head of Protein Expression & Laboratory Service, and responsible for the company's implementation of ConturELN. "It was clear that ConturELN has been developed together with users. Contur could also show that there is an ongoing development of the system and that the minor feature requests we had will be addressed in future releases of the software."

The system was set up in only four hours and the day after the users were educated for two hours. After that they were up and running with ConturELN. Users can now benefit from many sought-after features. For instance Affibody, being a company working with molecular imaging, has a lot of images that need to be included in the experiments. ConturELN makes inclusion of images and other generic type of data files easy and convenient.

"ConturELN makes it easy to start experiments, to sign them and to submit them for witnessing", says Finn Dunås. "Before we adopted ConturELN there could be a considerable time lag between the time of the experiments and the witnessing. ConturELN is capable of extracting a lot of information from our databases, thus reducing the need for the user to type critical information to a minimum. Also, our research is performed in two separate laboratories and ConturELN brings our experimental documentation together."

"Most scientific companies nowadays need an ELN product which is easy-to-use, requires minimum customization, integrates easily with existing databases and protects IP efficiently", says Thomas Rozlucki, VP Products at Contur. "We are pleased to be able to deliver on all four counts providing Affibody with a state-of-the-art ELN platform."

- ConturELN has been very well received and some of the users are really enthusiastic, concludes Finn Dunås. We actually started with a pilot group consisting of people from throughout the research organization. The pilot period was scheduled to last for two months but already after one month we decided to cut the pilot study and to roll out the system in the company.

EDX Diagnostics implements ConturELN to streamline optimization and test procedures - 2007-04-16

EDX Diagnostics S.p.A. is a product development company focusing on personalized in vitro diagnostics. At the company?s clinical reference laboratory in Sardinia, Italy, tests are performed within the field of personalized medicine.

As EDX Diagnostics in their research adhere to regulatory standards and guidelines, which require a stringent level of documentation, traceability and accuracy, the company has now implemented ConturELN to streamline optimization and development of test procedures. "ConturELN was found to be very competitive and based on modern (.NET) technologies", says Torbjörn Norberg, VP R&D and Laboratory Operations at EDX Diagnostics, and supervisor of the implementation. "Our market survey included interviews with other companies that had evaluated and implemented electronic notebook solutions and it was clear that both users and system managers of ConturELN were very impressed."

Feedback from the users in the clinical reference laboratory has been very positive and ConturELN has been adopted with enthusiasm. "The system is very user friendly and it was surprisingly easy to get started", says Jörgen Jonsson, Director Bioinformatics at EDX Diagnostics. "An electronic lab notebook has a number of obvious advantages, the most prominent for us is the enhanced ability to search and trace previous experiments and results. Other key benefits of ConturELN are the template function, the intuitive graphical user interface and compatibility with standards formats and MS Windows applications."

"We are happy to welcome EDX to the increasing number of ConturELN customers in Southern Europe", says Thomas Rozlucki, VP Products at Contur. "EDX are aiming to take a position in an exciting market segment and we are pleased that they have selected ConturELN as one of the key components in their data management platform."

EDX Diagnostics has got high expectations for the future and foresees a complete roll out of electronic lab notebooks within the company. "We anticipate including this product in all laboratory work, both research type as well as routine clinical diagnostics, as a complement to our LIS/LIMS system", says Torbjörn Norberg. "For this purpose we expect to enable a certain level of integration between the systems."

Further expansion of ConturELN at Johnson Matthey - 2007-02-27

Johnson Matthey, one of the world's leading speciality Chemicals Companies, implemented ConturELN in August 2005 at their Technology Centre in Reading. The mission was to improve record quality and search-ability, and to facilitate keeping relevant data in one repository.

The company has now extended the use of ConturELN both in the Technology Centre and at additional sites.

Johnson Matthey has operations in over 30 countries and employs around 7,700 people.

For more information read the complete case study of ConturELN at Johnson Matthey.

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Biology department at Karo Bio introduces ConturELN - 2007-02-19

Karo Bio, a leading drug discovery and development company specializing in nuclear receptors for the development of novel pharmaceuticals, introduced ConturELN in early 2006 to enforce and streamline the R&D process in their chemistry department.

As the next step of expanding the electronic lab notebook system within the company Karo Bio has now rolled-out ConturELN to also include the Structural Biology department with its sub-departments Assay Technology, Protein Chemistry, Protein Structure and Design, a major achievement in making the ELN system corporate wide. Next in line is the Pre-clinical development group.

"Installation and Karo Bio specific configuration took less than a day", says Henrik Jernstedt, Research Scientist (M.Sc.) at Karo Bio's Medicinal Chemistry department and one of the ELN initiators. "Also, since ConturELN is very user-friendly and intuitive, new users could start working in the system straight away after only an hour of introduction."

Today, more than 40 scientists at Karo Bio use ConturELN in their daily work to record and share experiments.

ConturRDC - New product launched by Contur - 2007-02-15

In 2002 leading European Biopharmaceutical companies Biovitrum and Contur Software formed a strategic collaboration that resulted in the market leading cross-discipline electronic lab notebook product, ConturELN. With more than 400 daily users at Biovitrum, and numerous successful customer installations world-wide, ConturELN has established itself as the No. 1 ELN for the entire R&D department.

Building upon this success, the two companies have now joined forces once again to deliver a secure and robust platform to capture and store analytical/instrument data. The product, called ConturRDC (Raw Data Capture), is designed to co-exist with other scientific data management solutions such as Electronic Lab Notebook systems, LIMS systems etc. While an ELN system is intended to record experimental details, ConturRDC is a central and secure repository for instrument and analytical data.
"The system will be the link between our ELN world and data generated from various lab instruments", says Bo Skoog, VP CIO Biovitrum.

ConturRDC will be deployed to more than 400 daily users at Biovitrum within the small molecular R&D department and within the protein development and manufacturing labs.
"Being able to launch a software product in this environment ensures usability, scalability and robustness for future customers", comments Thomas Rozlucki, VP Products at Contur.
A commercial release of ConturRDC will be available to customers in the second half of 2007. ConturRDC will be fully compliant with 21 CFR part 11.

The University of Skövde introduces ConturELN - 2007-02-07

The University of Skövde has implemented ConturELN to enable information sharing and facilitate experiment documentation and searching at the School of Life Science

The research conducted at the School of Life Sciences covers areas such as bio-medicine/medical science and biology. The unit of Molecular Biology focuses their research on infection biology and metabolism, where a combination of experimental and mathematical approaches is used.

Henrik Ericson, Lecturer and one of the initiators behind the electronic lab notebook system is very pleased with the implementation of ConturELN. "The implementation project has been very smooth and without any major efforts from our side. We believe that ELN is the future way to store laboratory data and it is also an excellent way of keeping track of the student's work. Also, ConturELN is very user friendly. A quick demonstration is all you need to be able to get started and the commands are very logical."

Henrik Ericson sees many advantages with the system. For instance, the methods that have been used by other researchers in other projects can be searched in a convenient way. Thus is the know-how of specific components or methods stored and passed on and not lost in notebooks that are collecting dust. Since most of the work is processed electronically, e.g. figures and calculations in tables, it's easier to be able to store a researcher?s entire work in one file in a safe way. "One advantage for the persons working at two different labs is the possibility to continue working with their experiments without having to transfer papers and notes between the labs", says Henrik Ericson. "Now they simply log in to the system from wherever they are and have instant access to their laboratory notebook."

For the future, the unit of Molecular Biology has decided to have all their new PhD students using ConturELN from the beginning. To start with, the unit's diploma students will also use ConturELN to report their progress during their work. The ELN system will also be introduced in the university's curriculum as a means to train the students to write in an electronic lab notebook as a supplement to their lab reports.

2006

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich installs ConturELN - 2006-10-18

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich, also known as ETH Zürich, is a science and technology university with an outstanding research record. At ETH Zürich, more than 18,000 people in 15 departments carry out research in the areas of technical, mathematical and natural sciences.

The Institute of Molecular Biology and Biophysics engages in biological research on the molecular level to solve the spatial structure of biological molecules at atomic resolution. The mechanism of protein folding and the assembly of large bio-molecules are also a focus of study.

To further enforce their research process and facilitate documentation and information sharing, the Institute of Molecular Biology & Biophysics has introduced ConturELN. "ConturELN is a very efficient way to organize, store and trace scientific data", says Dr Chrysoula Leontiou, one of the users at the Institute.

ETH Zürich was founded in 1855 and celebrated its 150th anniversary 2005.

Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI) installs ConturELN - 2006-10-02

The Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI) is a government expert authority with a mission to monitor the epidemiology of infectious disease among Swedish citizens and promote control and prevention of these diseases.

To further enforce their research process and facilitate documentation and information sharing, SMI has successfully introduced ConturELN.

"Clinical trials put high demands on documentation and complete traceability over long periods of time", says Rigmor Thorstensson, Associate Professor and Manager for the department of Virology, Immunology and Vaccinology at SMI. "We have used and evaluated ConturELN in a pre-clinical study on vaccine for tuberculosis and it fulfills all of these demands in the highest degree. Our co-workers have also appreciated that the notebook was so very easy to start using. During the coming months we will introduce ConturELN to several research groups at SMI."

Leading custom colorant and chemical dispersions manufacturer selects ConturELN - 2006-08-29

Plasticolors Inc., a custom colorant and chemical dispersions manufacturer for the thermoset plastics and paint and coatings industries, has selected ConturELN as their new Electronic Lab Notebook system to improve efficiency in its research and development department.

Historically, the lab at Plasticolors relied on paper notebooks to document experiments and tasks performed during the research and development process. Most of the information was reported in Microsoft Word or Excel with hard-copies transferred to the paper notebooks. This time-consuming process made it cumbersome to access and share information among colleagues.

Contur ELN was one of several companies to bid the project, but ultimately won because the proposal met all of Plasticolors? expectations.

"It provided us with the simplest, most efficient interface that the users liked and approved", said David Hyde, Coatings Process Development Engineer and Contur ELN team leader at Plasticolors. "The new system efficiently encourages the sharing of information within R&D, as well as to other departments, while providing the security we require."

Contur sponsors IQPC's ELNs & Laboratory Informatics conference - 2006-07-12

Contur will be supporting and attending both the conference and CENSA awards in London 26th-27th September.

Karo Bio selects ConturELN for their electronic lab notebook initiative - 2006-05-22

Karo Bio is a leading drug discovery and development company specializing in nuclear receptors for the development of novel pharmaceuticals, which are used for treatment of metabolic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, atherosclerosis and dyslipidemia.

The company has operations in Sweden and employs close to 80 people, of whom more than 80 percent are scientists.

To further enforce and streamline their R&D process, Karo Bio has chosen to introduce ConturELN to the chemistry department as a first step before going corporate wide.

To leverage existing investments, ConturELN provide seamless connectivity with several chem informatics packages from market leaders such as MDL, Accelrys and ChemAxon. Karo Bio could therefore benefit from the out-of-the-box connectivity to Accelrys Cheminformatics Suite Accord Enterprise.

"We were floored by ConturELN which was up-and-running after only a few hours of set-up. Since we have a kind of an ad hoc solution for our databases, with Activity Base on one side and Accord on the other side, and these two have to integrate with each other, it can be difficult to add a third party software that works straight off. So, we were a little nervous about the connection to Accord, but ConturELN required no re-configurations at all, it was simply just plug-and-play", says Christer Enkvist, System Administrator at Karo Bio and Project Manager for the ConturELN implementation.

Contur has been awarded Highest Creditworthiness by Sweden's leading business and credit information agency UC - 2006-02-07

Contur has joined the exclusive group of companies qualified by UC, Sweden's business and credit information agency, with the highest possible Credit Rating.

UC Risk assesses the viability of Swedish companies and is presented in two dimensions - UC Credit Rating and UC Risk Forecast. With UC's system for rating Swedish companies you can rapidly determine whether a company is creditworthy or not, and it specifies with great precision the risk of a company becoming insolvent.

"We are very proud of this recognition. Our intention has always, since the start in the late 1990s, been to operate a healthy and financially sound organization. This award puts us in the top tier of companies and we are glad that UC has acknowledged this", says Martin Wattin CEO at Contur.

2005

Leading manufacturer of chemical products selects ConturELN for their electronic lab notebook initiative - 2005-08-11

The company has operations in nearly 40 countries and employ close to 10,000 people around the world. Its customers belong to a wide range of technology industries.

ConturELN is featured in Nature, issue 436 7th July 2005 in the article - 2005-07-07

The article, written by Declan Butler, covers the pros and cons of electronic alternatives to paper lab notebooks. ConturELN users at the Structural Genomics Centre at Karolinska Institutet are interviewed.

"It's intuitive, and easy to get started. People got rid of their paper notebooks immediately", says Johan Weigelt, the centre's chief scientist.

Join us at IQPC's ELN Summit 2005 in London - 2005-07-06

The event is scheduled for the 26th-27th September 2005.

Cambridge Biotech LTD (CBT) selects ConturELN for their electronic lab notebook initiative - 2005-06-14

Cambridge Biotechnology Ltd (CBT) will replace the paper bound lab notebooks - used by scientists to record experiments - with an electronic system, ConturELN. ConturELN is an out-of-the-box enterprise electronic lab notebook system suitable for all workplaces and scientific disciplines within an R&D department.

CBT operates as an automomous drug-discovery research company with a strategic focus in the discovery of novel therapeutics for the treatment of pain, inflammation and obesity.

CBT scientists work mainly in the areas of medicinal chemistry, analytical chemistry, pharmacology and assay development. ConturELN will be used across all disciplines and the CBT scientists will be able to continue using familiar software tools such as Microsoft Office together with ConturELN.

ConturELN at the 2005 Microsoft .NET Awards! - 2005-03-31

ConturELN is nominated in the category "Business Impact" at the 2005 Microsoft .NET Awards.

Structural Genomics Centre at Karolinska Institutet selects ConturELN - 2005-03-17

Karolinska Institutet selects ConturELN for their Electronic Lab Notebook initiative.

The Structural Genomics Centre at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Karolinska Institutet selects ConturELN for their Electronic Lab Notebook initiative. The system will help the researchers to keep track of their experiments and will allow researchers to share thoughts, results and new discoveries.