Press Releases

Constella Health Sciences Re-wins CDC and FDA's $21 Million Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System Contract

DURHAM, N.C., Jan. 4, 2004—Constella Health Sciences, a business unit of Constella Group, Inc., has re-won a seven-year contract to support the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Immunization Program, valued at $21 million including all options. This win allows the business to continue to ensure the safety of vaccines through its work on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) contract, which is a collaborative effort of the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration.

"The purpose of VAERS is to help ensure that vaccines are as safe as they can be," said Chris LeGrand, president of Constella Health Sciences. "This program directly impacts the health of people nationwide and continues to demonstrate our importance as a leader in the public-sector health sciences market."

VAERS is the single nationwide mechanism for reporting and analyzing all vaccine adverse events and is a critically important program for protecting the health of people nationwide. VAERS has gained national recognition as a critical public health program since the anthrax attacks that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the subsequent smallpox mass immunization. Because of the increased risk of bioterrorism, the new VAERS contract requires Health Sciences to have an emergency preparedness plan in place for responding to a mass immunization campaign or emergency response effort.

"Because of the increased visibility of the program at the national level, there will be increased emphasis on data security and quality," said LeGrand. "The technical expertise of our staff and our strategies for accomplishing both of these key project objectives were instrumental to re-winning the contract."

Health Sciences involvement on the contract includes monitoring and reporting adverse events nationwide to the CDC and FDA on a daily basis. The business has played a significant role in monitoring adverse events of flu vaccinations to children, which led to recommendations that the influenza vaccination be added to routine childhood immunizations for children 6-23 months. Health Sciences triaged all reports of influenza vaccine adverse events by age and specific cases to provide early identification to the CDC of reports that could potentially warrant investigation. In turn, the CDC provided this information to health-care providers to help keep patients informed.

About Constella Health Sciences
Constella Health Sciences is the premier service provider in the public-sector health and biomedical research market. With more than 500 employees working across more than 20 disciplines, the business provides health-related technologies, services and research for public-sector clients such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Army's Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program.

About Constella Group
Constella Group is a leading provider of professional health services worldwide, celebrating 20 years of enhancing human health through innovative science, technology and knowledge solutions. Constella's two business units-Health Sciences and Clinical Informatics-create and provide health intelligence to help industry and government clients identify and address critical issues affecting human health. With Constella as the parent company, these business units comprise dynamic points of collaboration that build support, create momentum and add value from idea to impact across the full continuum of human health.

The company's 700 employees serve clients from company headquarters in Durham, N.C., and from offices in Atlanta; Morgantown, W.Va.; and Bethesda, Frederick and Silver Spring, Md.