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Pharsight Expands Public-Source Database Offering to Support Drug-Disease Modeling

Posted on: Monday, 12 March 2007, 09:00 CDT

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Pharsight Corporation (BULLETIN BOARD: PHST) , a leading provider of software and strategic services for optimizing clinical drug development, today announced the release of an expanded set of public-source databases (meta-data) to accelerate model-based assessment of a drug's performance against competing therapies. The newly available public-source databases cover clinical indications for type II diabetes, thrombosis, depression and insomnia. Pharsight currently offers public-source meta-databases that cover 20 disease indications.

Drug and disease models quantitatively integrate all the available pre- clinical and clinical data on a compound, public data in the clinical and scientific literature, and expert opinion to inform an understanding of compound attributes and behavior. These probabilistic mathematical models can then be used to run simulations that predict, within an interval of uncertainty, the expected clinical results for a wide range of treatment and patient scenarios involving the compound and its competitors.

Over the past several years, Pharsight has assembled a team of clinical database and clinical pharmacy experts dedicated to extracting information from the public domain and transforming this information into model-ready datasets. These datasets are used by clients and Pharsight scientific consultants to answer a variety of drug development questions. Additional information is available at http://www.pharsight.com/services.

"Public domain information and data are utilized to some extent in the majority of Pharsight's consulting projects to identify candidate disease models, to quantify the efficacy and tolerability of established treatments across target therapeutic areas, and to help predict the likely clinical profile of compounds in early-stage development," said Jonathan K. Wagg, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Scientist in Pharsight's Strategic Consulting Services Group. "While specific models must always be developed to suit a particular problem domain, public-source meta-databases often provide a useful starting point for modeling efforts to address important clinical development program questions."

Model-based approaches for combining proprietary data on a specific compound with literature data of its likely competitors offer powerful tools for managing risks concerning dose selection, efficient and effective trial design and key "go/no-go" decisions. The challenges and opportunities for sharing pre-competitive clinical trial data and quantitative models for diseases has received specific attention from FDA as part of its Critical Path Initiative to improve pharmaceutical industry productivity and reduce failure rates in late-stage development.

"The development and refinement of meta-databases reflects our scientific consulting group's collective experience across the major therapeutic areas, and in particular across most high-prevalence diseases and syndromes," said Shawn O'Connor, president and CEO of Pharsight. "Pharsight's quantitative, model-based methodology leverages all relevant information. We are systematically compiling public-source clinical databases with a deliberate focus to enable knowledge sharing and efficient drug-disease modeling to support our client's critical drug development decisions."

Forward Looking Statements

The statements in this press release related to the design and performance of the Pharsight public-source meta-database offering are forward looking statements. Forward-looking statements are inherently speculative, and actual results may differ materially from Pharsight's expectations due to a variety of factors, including: changes in FDA regulations may affect the demand for the product; and customers may not perceive the benefits of the product to be the same as Pharsight believes them to be. Other risk factors relating to Pharsight are disclosed in the company's most recent Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 12, 2007. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to the company on the date hereof, and the company assumes no obligation to update such statements.

About Pharsight Corporation

Pharsight Corporation develops and markets integrated products and services that enable pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to achieve significant and enduring improvements in the development and use of therapeutic products. The company's goal is to help customers reduce the time, cost and risk of drug development, as well as optimize the post-approval marketing and use of pharmaceutical products.

Pharsight's approach enhances the fundamental element of drug development success: strong decision-making. By adopting the Pharsight approach, customers acquire a new decision-making process with the potential to systematically improve every level and phase of their business and scientific processes. Pharsight is headquartered in Mountain View, California. Information about Pharsight is available at http://www.pharsight.com/.

Registered Trademarks and Trademarks

Pharsight(R) is a registered trademark of Pharsight Corporation. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders

Pharsight Corporation

CONTACT: Investors, Douglas Sherk, +1-415-896-6820, or JenniferBeugelmans, +1-415-896-6820, or Media, Jennifer Saunders, +1-646-201-5431, allof EVC Group

Web site: http://www.pharsight.com/

Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall

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