ICON Selected to Manage Lilly Clinical Trial Site Set Up and Monitoring in Europe

    Strategic Partnership Leverages ICON's Extensive European Capabilities

    DUBLIN, June 9 /CNW/ - ICON plc, (NASDAQ: ICLR; ISIN:IE0005711209), a
global provider of outsourced development services to the pharmaceutical,
biotechnology and medical device industries, today announced that it has
signed a strategic partnership with Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) to
manage the company's clinical trial site set up and monitoring in Europe for
Lilly managed studies. The agreement, which is subject to the relevant
employee consultation processes, is a continuation of Lilly's ongoing
transformation of its research and development organisation and follows
Lilly's selection of ICON to manage its clinical data management business
outside of the US, which was announced in November 2008.
    "Today's announcement marks another milestone in the successful
partnership between ICON and Lilly," commented Peter Gray, CEO at ICON. "We
have worked together to create a truly flexible model that better meets
Lilly's patient and portfolio needs and will also drive productivity within
Lilly's clinical operations in Europe. We look forward to continuing to assist
Lilly with its transformation initiatives and to delivering the quality
services that will expedite their drug development pipelines."
    "We are constantly evaluating how we can do things better to increase our
flexibility and focus our internal efforts on our core capabilities,"
commented Jeff Kasher, Lilly Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of
Global Clinical Development. "This strategic agreement enables us to leverage
ICON's significant expertise in clinical trial monitoring and site management
in Europe and will increase our ability to speed innovative medicines to
patients."

    About ICON plc

    ICON plc is a global provider of outsourced development services to the
pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. The Company
specialises in the strategic development, management and analysis of programs
that support clinical development - from compound selection to Phase I-IV
clinical studies. ICON currently has over 7,100 employees, operating from 71
locations in 38 countries.
    Further information is available at http://www.iconplc.com

    About Lilly

    Lilly, a leading innovation-driven corporation, is developing a growing
portfolio of first-in-class and best-in-class pharmaceutical products by
applying the latest research from its own worldwide laboratories and from
collaborations with eminent scientific organizations. Headquartered in
Indianapolis, Ind., Lilly provides answers - through medicines and information
- for some of the world's most urgent medical needs.

For further information: US contact: Courtney Judd, (212) 445-8365,
cjudd@webershandwick.com; UK contact: Erika Aalto, +44(0)20-706-70-214,
eaalto@webershandwick.com