SAP NetWeaver(R) Fund Makes Strategic Investment in Conformia

by SAP AG

Companies to Co-Innovate Solutions for the Life Sciences and Alcoholic Beverage Industries

Delivering on its commitment to help customers and partners experience the business value of enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA), SAP AG today announced it has made a minority investment in Conformia Software Inc. (Conformia). Conformia is emerging as a market leader and innovator of enterprise solutions for product and process lifecycle management (PPLM) across regulated process manufacturing industries, such as life sciences and alcoholic beverages. Today's announcement marks the fourth investment for SAP's $125 million global SAP NetWeaver(R) Fund and underscores SAP's commitment to fuel the development of innovative solutions built on the SAP NetWeaver(R) platform. This announcement was made at Software 2007, being held in Santa Clara, Calif, May 8 - 9.

"As part of the SAP ecosystem, Conformia is committed to delivering market-leading solutions that leverage the expertise and investment companies are making in SAP," said Joe Prang, CEO, Conformia. "Together, Conformia and SAP will be able to improve product operations from raw materials to distribution. This investment will enable us to accelerate our growth and development on the SAP NetWeaver platform."

Conformia's enterprise solutions enable pharmaceutical and biotechnology development organizations to accelerate development from candidate to commercial production, improve pipeline productivity and time to market - all at a lower total cost of ownership across the product and process development lifecycle. As part of this industry expertise, Conformia continues to forge deeper understanding and clarification of key guidelines between the industry and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) focused on the challenges and opportunities in pharmaceutical development, such as Quality by Design (QbD).

For the alcoholic beverage industry, Conformia provides a global, enterprise-wide, Web-based software platform to effectively manage, monitor and analyze spirits, wine and beer production and compliance from incoming raw materials to bottling.

The company, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, received "Powered by SAP NetWeaver(R)" status for its Scale Up Management System (SUMS), an enterprise solution for pharmaceutical and biotechnology development operations. As a result, customers can rapidly deploy SUMS within environments using the SAP NetWeaver platform and access SUMS functionality within the SAP NetWeaver(R) Portal.

"The SAP ecosystem continues to gain momentum, and the establishment of the SAP NetWeaver Fund further underscores our dedication to co-innovation and driving real customer value with partners" said Zia Yusuf, executive vice president, Global Ecosystem and Partner Group, SAP, and co-manager of the SAP NetWeaver Fund. "We're pleased to make this investment and look forward to continuing to co-innovate with Conformia to bring unparalleled value to our customers."