Florida Department of Health Designates SupplyScape As First Certificate Authority For Florida Electronic Pedigrees

E-Pedigree Market Leader SupplyScape Improves Security and Return-on-Investment Across Pharmaceutical Value Chain With Complete Solution

WOBURN, MASS., October 5, 2006 - SupplyScape® Corporation, the leading electronic pedigree provider, announced today that the Florida Department of Health designated SupplyScape as the first certificate authority for electronic drug pedigrees. Now, digital certificates required by Florida regulations are available from SupplyScape, effective immediately. Used to sign electronic pedigrees, these compliant digital certificates increase drug security and reduce cost throughout the drug supply chain, allowing trading partners to securely and automatically authenticate the pedigrees for their drug products.

As focus on the integrity and authentication of drug supply and distribution heightens, states like Florida are requiring strict controls surrounding these processes. Electronically signed and validated pedigree documents translate to substantial cost and time savings for pharmacies, distributors and manufacturers versus the much more labor intensive manual mechanisms. Digital certificates and the associated completely automated validation infrastructure, for the first time, allow the implementation of entirely automated, self-authenticating electronic pedigree solutions.

Certificate Authority Unlocks Operational Efficiency Opportunities Across Supply Chain

Pharmaceutical supply chain members realize immediate operational benefits because the RxCertificates services attest to both the identity and the authority of the pedigree signatory. Florida requires these authorizations (the license to distribute within, or into the State) be authenticated and validated, in real-time, by the receiver of the pedigree. SupplyScape's RxCertificates provide all of these services, in a completely automated, simple to use, standards compliant solution.

"SupplyScape's leadership in Florida is indicative of their commitment to help the industry advance through innovation. SupplyScape and SAFE are dedicated to standards-based approaches to delivering completely automated electronic pedigree solutions on a global basis," said George Rathbun, chief technology officer, SAFE-BioPharma Association, the non-profit association that created and manages the SAFE™ digital identity and signature standard for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

The SAFE™ standard is closely linked to the use of digital certificates for strong identity management. SupplyScape and selected SAFE members are collaborating on ways to accelerate the adoption and use of ePedigree.

Drug distributors and pharmacies must verify that each drug supplier has the proper license, to distribute drugs, i.e., is licensed by Florida or another state as appropriate. Without the benefit of Florida-approved digital certificates, companies distributing pharmaceuticals are faced with manually confirming, or authenticating, the integrity of each drug's chain of custody back to the manufacturer, while the manufacturer is faced with servicing these manual authentication requests.

"SupplyScape continues to define capabilities for a safe and secure supply chain that generate significant ROI throughout the drug distribution network," said SupplyScape CEO and President Shabbir Dahod. "Our work with SAFE is the latest example of our principle to always be driving open industry standards and collaborative value. To our customers this means easy integration and responsible risk management"

Complete Drug Security Solution Built On Trading Partner Interoperability

In keeping with SupplyScape's commitment to open standards and interoperability, the digital certificates issued by RxCertificates can be used with any electronic pedigree system. This provides customers with the assurance that the Florida-compliant digital certificates will work seamlessly with their existing pedigree infrastructure and with the pedigree systems of their trading partners in the drug supply chain. The X.509-based certificates meet a broad range of industry standards including the ratified standards for Certificate Profiles outlined by the industry association EPCglobal.

With the addition of RxCertificates to the company's Safe and Secure platform of electronic pedigree and EPC authentication solutions, SupplyScape continues to reaffirm its pharmaceutical market leadership in maximizing leverage and business from patient safety investments across the supply chain.

Pharmaceutical companies, drug wholesalers and pharmacies who distribute drugs in Florida and nationwide can obtain Florida-compliant digital certificates at http://www.supplyscape.com/product/certificate/.