LONDON, November 30, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- New global services agreement covers a wide range of services to maximize operational efficiency and reduce cycle time

Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH), a leading provider of consulting, technology, and business process outsourcing services, today announced a multi-year agreement with AstraZeneca to deliver comprehensive biostatistics and medical reporting services to generate clinical study reports.

Under the agreement, Cognizant will provide centralized statistical programming, statistical analysis, medical writing, and document publishing services, spanning the entire chain of clinical data reporting from case report forms to clinical study reports. This will enable AstraZeneca to increase operational efficiency, reduce cycle times, and optimize costs. AstraZeneca will continue to own and manage key scientific and medical activities associated with the design of clinical trial programs, and the interpretation of data from them.

Cognizant will leverage its proprietary Web 2.0-based platform, Cognizant 2.0, to support knowledge sharing and collaboration across global teams, allowing clinical studies across different countries to be managed simultaneously, and delivering significant productivity benefits to AstraZeneca.

"Cognizant will help us streamline our clinical development operations. This is key to our business transformation aimed at achieving greater efficiency, agility, flexibility, and global competitiveness -- all of which are crucial to clinical trials and development of new drugs," said Karin Wingstrand, Vice President and Head of Clinical Development at AstraZeneca. "Leveraging Cognizant's IT and business process expertise allows AstraZeneca to focus more time, energy, and investment on those clinical activities that will make a difference in developing innovative medicines more quickly for patients."

"We are pleased to have been selected by AstraZeneca to provide biostatistics and medical reporting services," said Krish Venkat, Senior Vice President of the Healthcare and Life Sciences practice at Cognizant. "We are strongly committed to leveraging the domain and process knowledge of our experienced biostatisticians and medical writers to support AstraZeneca through improved decision-making, process standardization, consistency of delivery, and cost savings, which they can reinvest to support the fast, innovative, and efficient development of their R&D programs."

This agreement further expands the services that Cognizant provides to AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca first engaged Cognizant in 2004 to provide business process and technology solutions spanning discovery, clinical, manufacturing, and commercial operations. Since 2008, Cognizant has also been providing centralized data management services for AstraZeneca's global clinical development programs, and application maintenance services to AstraZeneca's global enterprise in the business-critical areas of research, clinical development, and sales and marketing.

About Cognizant's Healthcare and Life Sciences Practice

Cognizant's Healthcare and Life Sciences practice is committed to helping change billions of lives for the better by partnering with customers to build solutions to healthcare challenges, continually improve the way they do business, set the pace in clinical development, strengthen their regulatory infrastructure, and increase competitiveness. Consistently ranked among the Healthcare Informatics Top 100 list, Cognizant serves 27 of the top 30 global pharmaceutical companies, 15 of the top 20 health plans in the U.S., 5 of the top 6 Pharmacy Benefit Management companies in the U.S., 9 of the top 10 biotech companies, and 12 of the top 20 medical device companies. With a large team of dedicated professionals including doctors, pharmacologists, physicians, biomedical engineers, pharmacists, biostatisticians, medical writers, and GxP consultants, Cognizant provides domain-aligned consulting, IT, business process, and analytics solutions globally.

About Cognizant

Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the world's leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50 delivery centers worldwide and 130,000 employees as of September 30, 2011, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at http://www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant.  

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes statements which may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the accuracy of which are necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied include general economic conditions and the factors discussed in our most recent Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cognizant undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

SOURCE Cognizant