BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Oct 21, 2008 -- Hooper Holmes (AMEX:HH) today announced that its Heritage Labs division was awarded a contract to manufacture biospecimen kits for the National Children's Study (NCS) by Westat, an employee-owned corporation providing research services to agencies of the U.S. Government as well as businesses, foundations, and state and local governments. This component of the NCS was awarded to Westat by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under contract number HHSN275200503395C.
Mandated by Congress in the Children's Health Act of 2000, the NCS is a collaborative effort involving many public and private partners committed to improving children's health. The Study is led by a consortium of federal agencies including: the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (the NICHD and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences within the NIH, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The NCS is a major longitudinal cohort study that will follow children from before birth to at least 21 years of age and will evaluate the effects of a variety of environmental factors, including chemical, physical, biological, and psychosocial factors, on children's health and well-being. Researchers will analyze how these elements interact with each other and what helpful and/or harmful effects they might have on children's health. Data will be collected from children and their families from different areas of the country, from varied backgrounds, and of different family types.
"We are proud to have been selected as the sole provider for one of the key elements to this monumental study," said Mark Patterson, President of Heritage Labs. "As the study progresses, Heritage Labs will gradually increase the volume of kits manufactured to coincide with the number of factors examined as the children grow older. This contract further strengthens our leadership position in lab testing and medical manufacturing."
The contract has an initial value of about $3 million over three years and may be extended.
In order to study the main hypotheses for the National Children's Study, a variety of data will be collected from participants, including biological specimens. Biospecimens from a potential mother, father, and/or child will either be collected by a data collector or self collected by the participant and will take place at defined time periods or visits during the study. The visits are defined as Pre-Pregnancy (P1), First Trimester Pregnancy (T1), Third Trimester Pregnancy (T3), Birth (B) and 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months after the child is born.
In order to guarantee consistency of data collection across study locations and between participants, Heritage Labs will manufacture biospecimen collection kits that will help to streamline biospecimen collection and ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and good quality control in the field.
About Heritage Labs
Heritage Labs International LLC, a division of Hooper Holmes, was founded in 1997 as the value leader in laboratory services that provide information to help people manage and reduce risk. One of the most automated testing laboratories in the industry, Heritage Labs has achieved certification from the College of American Pathologists (CAP), a recognized benchmark of quality. All kit manufacturing and laboratory testing is performed at Heritage Labs' headquarters in Olathe, Kansas.
About Hooper Holmes
Hooper Holmes is the leader in collecting personal health data and transforming it into useful information, enabling customers to take actions that manage or reduce their risks and expenses. As the leading provider of risk assessment services for the insurance industry, Hooper Holmes provides insurers with the widest range of medical exam, data collection, laboratory testing and underwriting services in the industry.
With presence in over 250 markets and a network of thousands of examiners, Hooper Holmes can arrange a medical exam anywhere in the U.S. and deliver the results to its customers. Each year we arrange more medical exams than any other company and process 3.8 million specimens in our laboratory. We provide a complete service for wellness, disease management, and managed care companies including scheduling support, fulfillment of supplies, blood collection kits, medical screenings, lab testing and data transmission. We underwrite 300,000 cases annually and complete more than two million telephone interviews.
This press release contains "forward-looking" statements, as such term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements are our ability to successfully implement our business strategy; uncertainty as to our working capital requirements over the next 12 to 24 months; our ability to maintain compliance with the financial covenants in our credit facility; our expectations regarding our operating cash flows; and the rate of life insurance application activity. Additional information about these and other factors that could affect the Company's business is set forth in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 17, 2008. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.