Dendrite Forms Alliance With FDS to Expand E-Learning Solutions for the Global Pharmaceutical Industry
Morristown, NJ – November 13, 2002 – Dendrite International, Inc. (NASDAQ: DRTE) today announced that it has developed a strategic alliance with FDS, which develops content for pharmaceutical E-Learning solutions.
Through the alliance, Dendrite will offer an asynchronous component to complement its synchronous E-Learning offering, which forms part of the pharmaceutical industry’s only end-to-end training solution. Together, the companies offer a comprehensive array of E-Learning content-therapeutic and disease state information, product content, competitive analyses, and sales and marketing information- delivered in various flexible, user-friendly formats.
The alliance is designed to capitalize on the explosive growth in the E-Learning field; a 2001 Gartner report forecasted the global E-Learning market to grow to approximately $4.2 billion in 2002 and reach $33.6 billion in 2005, making up almost one-third of all training deployed by the middle of the decade.
“Dendrite’s training mission is to provide the pharmaceutical industry with an unsurpassed, comprehensive training solution-one that will make sales representatives more effective and productive through ensuring that more of the right calls are made to more of the right doctors at the right time,” said David Bonthrone, Vice President of E-Learning Sales and Marketing. “Our relationship with FDS will now enable our pharmaceutical clients to cost effectively train their people more quickly on product launches, upgrades, and indications.”
Added Niall Johnston, Vice President of Business Development at FDS, “Training is critical for ensuring corporate productivity, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry. However, it is also an expensive and time-consuming activity. As part of a blended solution, E-Learning now offers a compelling alternative to traditional face-to-face training. Beyond costs savings, it offers increased effectiveness through better knowledge retention as well as increased student satisfaction through class schedule convenience and flexibility.”
Dendrite’s E-Learning capabilities are powered by its unique WebSession Manager™ solution, an integrated software and service offering designed for the web-based delivery of distance learning and collaboration. The solution enables software application sharing, user training and coaching, and document-preparation collaboration. It supports PowerPoint presentations and other Microsoft Office applications, websites, live and pre-recorded video, pre-recorded class segments, Flash animations, tests/question-and-answer sessions/polling, and conversations.
FDS is focused on drug and product training for sales representatives, and delivers customized offerings that include content in the therapeutic area, disease state, pharmacology, and competitor analysis. During a recent FDS web-based initiative, a European field force was retrained on a new product in half the amount of time it would have taken in a face-to-face environment, achieving strong ROI through high retention levels.
About FDS
FDS specializes in developing high quality medical-related content and E-Learning training solutions for global pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Based in Ireland with offices in New York and California, FDS has enjoyed an excellent track record and references from many of the largest clients in the pharmaceutical E-Learning sector over the past five years. For more information, visit http://www.fdsonline.com/.
About Dendrite
Dendrite enables pharmaceutical companies to have more of their drugs prescribed for improved patient health through the strategic optimization of their sales and marketing channels and clinical resources. Pharmaceutical sales representatives and managers from 57 countries and over 150 companies, including 19 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies, use Dendrite’s sales channel management products and services. For more information, visit http://www.dendrite.com/.
Media Inquiries
Erik Kopp
908-541-5850
mailto:%20erik.kopp@dendrite.com
Note: Dendrite and SAI are trademarks of Dendrite International, Inc.
The foregoing contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The statements may be identified by such forward-looking terminology as “expect,” “believe,” “may,” “will,” “intend,” “plan,” and similar statements or variations. Such forward-looking statements are based on our current estimates and assumptions and involve certain significant risks and uncertainties, including those which may result from our dependence on the pharmaceutical industry; fluctuations in quarterly revenues due to lengthy sales and implementation cycles for our products, our fixed expenses in relation to fluctuating revenues and variations in customers’ budget cycles; dependence on major customers; changes in demand for our products and services attributable to business and economic pressures on our major customers; successful and timely development and introduction of new products and versions; rapid technological changes; increased competition; international operations; acquisitions; events that may affect the U.S. and world economies; retention of key senior managers; our ability to manage our growth; the protection of our proprietary technology; our ability to compete in the Internet-related products and services market; the continued demand for Internet-related products and services; the ability of our third party vendors to respond to technological change; our ability to maintain our relationships with third-party vendors; and catastrophic events which could negatively affect our information technology infrastructure. Other important factors that should be considered are included in the company’s 10-K, 10-Qs, and other reports filed with the SEC. Actual results may differ materially. The company assumes no obligation for updating any such forward-looking statements.
