LANSDALE, PA

ProtonMedia, the leader in 3D virtual collaboration, announces the availability of Release 2.2, of its award-winning ProtoSphere virtual collaboration cloud. This latest release adds fine-grained moderator controls and enhanced usage metrics reporting for corporate learning applications. And for enhanced collaboration uses cases like project management, ProtoSphere 2.2 adds a broadcast-style town hall presentation mode supporting up to 250 users plus the ability to view and remotely control presentation content while performing other activities during a session. These enhancements further the immersive experience of 3D virtual meeting places resulting in an elevated level of productivity for users.

ProtonMedia will be demonstrating ProtoSphere Release 2.2 at the Microsoft Lync Conference 2013, February 19-21 in San Diego, CA. ProtonMedia’s continued collaboration with Microsoft’s business productivity technologies provides a unified environment of communications and collaboration tools presented to users in a seamless, rich 3D environment for a more engaging environment that expedites and improves learning.

“Enterprises of all sizes can benefit from Microsoft’s productivity software, both on-premise and in the cloud,” said Aamer Kaleem, CTO of Microsoft’s Enterprise Lync Voice business. “ProtonMedia’s offering provides its customers with the ability to accelerate their adoption of new technologies across the enterprise and helps increase employee productivity, efficiency, and organizational flexibility.”

“Release 2.2 builds on the immersive, more engaging user experience which results from combining ProtoSphere with Microsoft unified communications. Continuing this vision, we are working to bring Lync 2013 and mobile device support to ProtoSphere in a future release,” said Ron Burns, ProtonMedia CEO.

To request a free trial of ProtoSphere 2.2, visit ProtonMedia’s website at: http://www.protonmedia.com/free-trial/

Proton Media named finalist with a collaboration tool unifying the virtual and real worlds
VQ Communications named runner up for a scheduling and call management application

TEAM POLYCOM, VANCOUVER, Canada – Feb. 6, 2013 – Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), the global leader in open standards-based unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), today announced the winners of its first App Developer Contest, challenging individuals and companies to submit solutions using Polycom® RealPresence® open application programming interfaces (APIs) to extend the value of the Polycom® RealPresence® Platform – the most comprehensive and interoperable UC&C software infrastructure for universal video collaboration. The winners were announced today during the company’s annual sales and partner conference, TEAM Polycom 2013 in Vancouver, held February 4-7, 2013.

Polycom named three winners of the contest who received cash prizes and other recognition.

• X2O Media won the grand prize with an application that delivers live and on-demand video content to digital signage devices, Polycom® VVX® IP phones, and video kiosks. The application uses APIs for Polycom video content management, video conferencing and IP phone systems to provide a comprehensive multi-channel video delivery solution. For example, a training session conducted via video conferencing can be captured and streamed to a variety of devices, so training content can be swiftly shared with more people.
• Proton Media was named finalist with an application that combines Polycom video, Microsoft® Lync™ and Microsoft® SharePoint® in a persistent, web-based immersive environment bringing face-to-face collaboration to an interactive virtual world.
• VQ Communication was named runner up for the integration of their VQ Ignite scheduling and call management application with the Polycom video conferencing platform.

Captions: (top to bottom) X2O Media displays content on a video kiosk and digital signage. Proton Media blends the digital and real worlds. VQ Communication’s call management dashboard.

X2O Media of Canada, Proton Media from the United States, and VQ Communications from the United Kingdom reflect the global nature of unified communications and video collaboration. Other registered contestants came from Australia, France, Hong Kong, India, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Spain. Their applications serve a wide variety of use cases including user interface integrations, vertical application extensions, and a programming language layer added to the Polycom® RealPresence® Media Management solution for content creation and publishing.

“The creativity we saw in the submissions was astounding,” said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, President of Products and Services, Polycom. “It was a tough decision narrowing it down to our three winners. We had applications that organize video conferences on mobile devices such as iPads and others that create complete virtual collaboration environments featuring Polycom video. Ultimately, it came down to X2O Media and their comprehensive application for multi-channel video delivery, a solution that is requested by many of our customers. We’re so pleased with the response to the contest; it’s a real validation of the Polycom RealPresence Platform software infrastructure and the power of video collaboration.”

The contest, which ran from December 2012 through January 2013, was open to Polycom partners as well as third party companies and individuals. A panel of judges determined the winners based on five criteria: commercial applicability, user experience, productivity, third-party application integration, and innovation.

WILMINGTON, N.C., (November 29, 2012) – Pharmaceutical Product Development, LLC (PPD) today announced it has been recognized by Scrip Intelligence with its 2012 award for Best Technological Development in Clinical Trials for deploying cutting-edge solutions advancing clinical research.

PPD received the honor at the annual Scrip Awards ceremony Nov. 28 in London, marking the second consecutive year PPD won for best technology after receiving the 2011 Scrip Award for Best Contract Research Organization (CRO).

“Winning this award for the second consecutive year is a testament to the people of PPD,” said David Simmons, chairman and CEO of PPD. “In today’s evolving health care model, CROs must be able to adapt to clients’ changing needs and proactively meet their challenges. PPD connects talented people and innovative solutions to exceed the needs of our biopharmaceutical industry clients, who are constantly seeking ways to increase productivity and efficiency.”

The Scrip Award for best technology recognized PPD® 3D, a virtual learning environment PPD created with ProtonMedia to provide a scalable and sustainable global training model. PPD 3D improves how PPD trains clinical research associates to monitor clinical trials, which is vital for enhancing the quality of site management and clinical monitoring for clients’ research programs, and can contribute to faster project startup.

“PPD were worthy winners of this award,” said Mike Ward, chief content officer for Datamonitor Healthcare andScrip Intelligence. “Their PPD 3D technology has improved the cost-effectiveness, speed and quality of clinical trial training for the life sciences, and our judges were impressed by the novel use of this type of technology in clinical research, saying it has huge potential.”

The Scrip Awards acknowledge achievements across a broad range of areas in the biopharmaceutical industry. Attracting hundreds of industry professionals from the world’s leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, the awards have become a distinct mark of superior achievement. Pharmaceutical, biotech and contract research organizations compete for awards in 15 categories, which are decided by an expert panel of judges.

Microsoft and ProtonMedia to Help Speed Industry Drug Development and Time to Market

The Asia Training Consortium (ATC), a Merck-sponsored group of pharmaceutical companies and clinical research organizations that was formed in Shanghai in 2011, has added ProtonMedia and Microsoft Corporation to ATC to offer best-in-class collaborative cloud solutions to the group, as it seeks to pool resources to train clinical research professionals in the Asia Pac region. Member companies currently include Merck & Co. (MSD), Orchestrall Inc., RPS, PACRA, Covance, Bayer Healthcare, Pfizer, ClinTec International, Edinburgh Napier University, Novartis China, and UL Eduneering. ProtonMedia and Microsoft have now joined as member companies.

“Merck believes the entire life sciences industry will need to move towards these kinds of collaborative hubs to reduce the cost of drug development and speed the time to market for new medicines,” says John Constantine, Executive Director & Dean, of the Merck Polytechnic Institute. Merck & Co. is a founding member of ATC and has been a leader in the training area.

Andrea McGonigle, the Managing Director for Microsoft Life Sciences added “Microsoft Life Sciences is excited to be joining the ATC at such an important time when we can bring our cloud-based collaboration solutions into partnership with ProtonMedia’s training expertise to skillfully support a host of new research talent both in the Asia region and the entire industry.”

ProtonMedia will provide ProtoSphere®, its innovative training and collaboration solution to ATC members. Operating on Microsoft’s secure cloud, ProtoSphere® will allow ATC companies to connect and collaborate on a variety of global training initiatives. This advanced 3D immersive environment will be the first of its kind deployed cooperatively for the Life Sciences industry.

“We are honored to be participating in this very forward looking program and believe collaborative cloud based hubs will be instrumental in transforming the entire life sciences industry in the years ahead” says Ron Burns, CEO of ProtonMedia.

ABOUT ATC
ATC was initiated in October 2011 in Shanghai when multiple pharmaceutical companies and CROs convened to address the common issues of training in the Asia Pacific region.
For more information visit: www.trainingconsortium.asia

Unique virtual learning platform helps earn third consecutive annual ranking

WILMINGTON, N.C. (September 12, 2012) – Pharmaceutical Product Development, LLC (PPD) today announced it has been named to the 2012 InformationWeek 500, an annual recognition of the most innovative users of business technology in the United States. PPD was selected for its commitment to industry-leading technology solutions, including PPD® 3D, a unique avatar-based virtual learning environment created to train employees on a global scale.

PPD collaborated with ProtonMedia on its ProtoSphere platform to adapt PPD’s classroom training programs for the virtual-world environment. The company deployed PPD 3D across global operations to improve the speed, quality and cost-effectiveness of preparing researchers who oversee clinical trials of new medical treatments.

“Our traditional classroom training program was highly acclaimed and effective for on-boarding and preparing clinical research associates,” said Mike Wilkinson, PPD’s chief information officer and executive vice president. “Yet our traditional model was not sustainable for a globally deployed staff. Our learning and technology team evolved our training program to create a highly engaging, interactive and always-available virtual learning environment. The results have been impressive, and we plan to expand the use of PPD 3D to help our clients develop the critical therapies needed in today’s fast-changing health care environment.”

Using personalized, culturally appropriate avatars in PPD 3D, clinical research team members and clients interact in highly social, collaborative and visually appealing three-dimensional virtual spaces. PPD 3D provides mobile learning, communities, blogs, wikis, forums, expert directories and social networking capabilities, while bringing two-way engagement to online learning. Users talk, send instant messages, view and interact with presentation and media content, record notes and access the Web – all at the same time, from anywhere.

“The InformationWeek 500 has recognized the most innovative users of business technology for 24 years, and this year’s innovations were particularly impressive,” said InformationWeek Editor In Chief Rob Preston. “What the editors looked for are unconventional approaches – new technologies, new models, new ways of grabbing business opportunities and solving complex business problems with IT.”

In its third consecutive year being named to the InformationWeek 500, PPD ranked in the top 125 of U.S. business technology leaders. InformationWeek 500 rankings spotlight the power of innovation in information technology, rather than simply identifying the biggest IT spenders. The award was presented at a ceremony in Dana Point, Calif., on Sept. 11. For more information, visit www.informationweek.com/iw500.

About PPD

PPD is a leading global contract research organization providing drug discovery, development and lifecycle management services. Our clients and partners include pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, academic and government organizations. With offices in 46 countries and more than 12,000 professionals worldwide, PPD applies innovative technologies, therapeutic expertise and a commitment to quality to help clients and partners accelerate the delivery of safe and effective therapeutics and maximize the returns on their R&D investments. For more information, visit www.ppdi.com.

Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations and assumptions, including statements, expectations and assumptions about PPD being named to the InformationWeek 500 list, contained in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Although PPD attempts to be accurate in making these forward-looking statements, it is possible that future circumstances might differ from the assumptions on which such statements are based and could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Other important factors that could cause future results to differ materially include the following: rapid technological advances that make our services less competitive; competition in the outsourcing industry; the ability to control SG&A spending; risks associated with acquisitions and investments; the ability to attract, integrate and retain key personnel, including our chairman and CEO; overall global economic conditions; economic conditions, research and development spending, and outsourcing trends in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and government-sponsored research sectors; consolidation in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries; PPD’s ability to win new business; loss, delay or modification of large contracts; higher-than-expected cancellation rates; the rate of conversion of backlog into revenue; actual operating performance; compliance with drug development regulations; and changes in the regulation of the drug development process. PPD assumes no obligation and expressly disclaims any duty to update these forward-looking statements in the future, except as required by applicable law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing PPD’s estimates or views as of any date subsequent to the date hereof.

“It’s a testament to the team’s dedication and creativity. The pace at which we’re expanding into the enterprise with new tools and features is really very exciting.”
ProtoSphere® 2.1 dramatically improves the toolset and capabilities of the first and only immersive, 3D social collaboration environment integrated directly with Microsoft’s Office Productivity Suite (including Outlook®, SharePoint® and Lync®). Version 2.1 allows users to book virtual rooms for meetings and events directly from their Outlook calendars, dramatically simplifying the creation of immersive 3D collaboration spaces.

ProtonMedia is rapidly becoming a formidable player in the collaboration space and with Version 2.1, the company is deepening its penetration into the enterprise. “I couldn’t be more proud of how ProtoSphere is growing,” said Ron Burns, ProtonMedia’s CEO. “It’s a testament to the team’s dedication and creativity. The pace at which we’re expanding into the enterprise with new tools and features is really very exciting.”

Burns recently presented ProtoSphere® 2.1 to enthusiastic crowds at both Microsoft’s 2012 Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto and at Polycom’s July 16th press conference in San Jose. At the San Jose event, Polycom not only announced a variety of new products and initiatives, including its new RealPresence® Platform, the company also specifically referred to ProtoSphere® as an example of how to integrate with Polycom’s solutions.

ProtoSphere®, which already uses many of Microsoft’s business productivity technologies (such as Lync audio, text, IM, presence, application sharing and Office 365), will now be “Polycom Ready.” Polycom Ready is a Polycom Partner Network program that verifies products as interoperable with Polycom solutions and applications.

ProtoSphere® 2.1 firmly positions ProtonMedia to enable remote worker collaboration, improve training results and facilitate Human Resource’s on-boarding programs among other uses throughout the enterprise. Armed with recent survey results such as those from a leading life sciences research firm demonstrating that 75% of users strongly agreed that it was easy for them to learn while using the platform and 95% stating that they were more engaged than with standard web tools (such as WebEx or GoToMeeting), ProtonMedia is on the rise.

“Just wait, there’s so much more to come,” Burns added.

To request a download of ProtoSphere 2.1, visit ProtonMedia’s website at http://www.protonmedia.com/the-product/trial-download/.

For more about ProtoSphere® 2.1’s capabilities, see http://blog.protonmedia.com/2012/07/introducing-protosphere-21-now.html.