Boston---CenterWatch announced that it has launched a free wireless PDA suite of searchable databases designed for clinical research and healthcare professionals seeking clinical trials information in a portable format. Using CenterWatch-Mobile, research and healthcare professionals will have ready access to information about investigational drugs and active clinical trials at the point of patient care. This information will assist professionals in determining more comprehensive treatment programs and in identifying potential clinical trials for their patients. Three databases comprise the CenterWatch-Mobile suite. They include: detailed listings of more than 8,000 ongoing industry-sponsored clinical trials; summary descriptions of hundreds of drugs recently approved by the FDA; and more than 1,500 profiles of drugs in phase I - III clinical trials. The databases available through this PDA format will be updated several times per week.

"We are very excited about our ability to offer these information resources in a flexible, wireless format for hand held devices," said Paul Molinari, Manager of Business Development for CenterWatch. "Ultimately, this format will assist physicians, health professionals, researchers and consumers in conveniently staying informed about treatment options."

CenterWatch developed CenterWatch-Mobile in collaboration with Synteract, a contract services company that develops web, wireless and voice data solutions for the clinical trials industry. Said Russell Holmes, Executive VP of Synteract "Our wireless group put a tremendous effort into developing the CenterWatch-Mobile application. Currently, the product works on Palm OS devices, and further work will commence on porting to other devices, such as Pocket PC and web phones."

CenterWatch-Mobile represents the next generation of personal digital assistant (PDA) applications as it is wireless and feeds into a remote web server for the bulk of the database content. Only a small amount of memory (about 38k) is required to download the application. The CenterWatch content displayed on the PDA device is in real time and never requires the user to perform periodic "hotsync's."

Given the clinical professionals growing need for portability, CenterWatch-Mobile is an important set of resources for Palm users," said
Molinari. "Instead of spending 15 minutes investigating a printed index or surfing through a website, clinical professionals may search any one of these resources whenever and wherever they need to and know that the information is up to date."

About CenterWatch

CenterWatch is a Boston-based information services company that focuses on the clinical trials industry. CenterWatch offers a variety of publications and services for clinical research and health professionals, patients and health consumers. In 2001, an estimated five million patients and their advocates will view more than 42,000 clinical trial listings on the www.CenterWatch.com e-health website. CenterWatch is a subsidiary of the Medical Economics Company and a division of Thomson Healthcare, Thomson Corp.