Constella wins NIH toxicology program data deal

Constella Group LLC won a five-year, $21 million contract from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to provide statistical and computer support to the National Toxicology Program.

The award combines two existing contracts for statistical and computer support that Constella Group has held since 1986 and 2000, respectively.

For the statistical part of the new contract, the Durham, N.C., company will continue to provide data analyses for chronic, subchronic and reproductive studies conducted by the National Toxicology Program.

Constella Group also will continue to provide statistical support for epidemiological and other human studies conducted by the institute, develop mathematical and statistical methods for toxicological applications and publish scientific papers in the institute's fields of interest.

For the IT part of the contract, Constella Group will continue to support the Toxicology Data Management System Enterprise, a Web-based system that the company developed for the program to store all data and to assist in analyzing data through multiple reporting functions.

To create this system, Constella converted the program's old data management system, which contained more than 75 million rows of data, to an Oracle database. The company also built a Web-based system for easy data access and subsequently developed an extensive reporting system to assist with analyzing and interpreting data.

A key component of the new system lets the laboratories conducting the toxicology studies enter experiment protocols directly into the system database though one of the features of the Web-based technology. This capability ensures that study-related information is kept in one central location.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Science is one of the 27 institutes within the National Institutes of Health. Its National Toxicology Program was set up in 1978 to evaluate the potential toxicity of various chemicals and other agents that could affect public health.

Constella Group is a private company that provides business information, clinical trial, research, and consulting services to the health care industry worldwide. It has about 1,100 employees.