CrysIS manages the data and workflow of X-Ray protein crystallography from a request for a protein-compound, through the experiment and the final deposition of a protein-ligand structure, and the subsequent exploitation of that structure data.

A typical pharmaceutical organization will produce hundreds of protein-ligand (PDB) structures per year. The workflow associated with this process is complex and results in a large quantity of data that is utilized by structural chemists and medicinal and computational chemists alike. Planning the work of structural chemists across multiple projects within an organization can therefore be a difficult task. Identifying those attributes that lead to a successful experiment is difficult without ready access to previous experimental results. With such a complex workflow, and without the use of appropriate tools, the possibility for manual transcription errors is increased.

This years PSDi conference is organised by GSK and will be held at the Hilton Stansted, London.  The conference will be themed around issues reflecting the ever increasing pace of change the pharmaceutical industry experiences and the challenges it currently faces. 

To register online, please visit http://www.tcp-events.co.uk/psdi2008/registration.html

For more information on CrysIS, please visit http://www.tessella.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/crysis.pdf

Tessella will be presenting and exhibiting at the ‘Doing Business with the World’s Scientific Research Facilities’ at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London on September 16 2008.

Tessella’s work in scientific software - and particularly the fusion technology arena - spans more than 20 years. Tessella’s scientific software specialists have worked on many of the key systems at the Joint European Torus (JET) experiment at UKAEA Culham in the UK, the world’s leading centre for research into fusion power. It is here that teams of scientists from all over Europe have been given the important remit of conducting fusion experiments with a view to generating a plentiful and environmentally safe energy source for the future. The presentation will explore how professional software engineers and project managers with the right academic backgrounds can contribute to the success of large research projects.

This one day event brings together academia, industry and European and UK-based Large Facility representatives for a combined conference and exhibition.  To register and attend as a delegate, please visit http://www.qi3.co.uk/events/event.asp?EventID=201

Groundbreaking technology, TAPAS, has transformed traditional train maintenance by introducing a remote condition-based maintenance system, which can be applied to existing mid-life fleets as well as new rolling stock.

Nick Clarke, technical manager at Tessella said: “I am extremely delighted that TAPAS has won this award.  TAPAS has increased the reliability of the Class 455 fleet from 6,000 to 16-17,000 miles per failure, which is excellent news for passengers, at the same time as reducing routine maintenance time.”

Nick Clarke continued: “The changes in the structure of the transport industry have driven companies to modernize and seek new solutions to key challenges such as asset management, condition monitoring, maintenance planning and revenue management. One of Tessella’s defining qualities is to add value to our clients business by taking capabilities and technologies developed in one industry sector and using them to deliver innovative solutions in a completely different sector. Uniting innovation with previous experience, Tessella is perfectly placed to help organizations exploit new technology and so take their performance, and the services they provide, to another level.”

In 2007, Southern, HSBC Rail and Tessella won the Railway Industry Innovation Award in the category of Engineering and Information Technology showing the continued success of TAPAS.

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Notes to editors:

For press enquiries or to arrange an interview with Tessella please contact Christina Tealdi, Marketing Communications & PR Executive, on +44 (0) 1235 555511 or christina.tealdi@tessella.com
For press enquiries or to arrange an interview with Southern please contact Chris Hudson on 020 8929 8673 or chris.hudson@southernrailway.com
For press enquiries with HSBC Rail please contact Wendy Filer on 020 7380 5057 or wendyfiler@hsbc.com

• Founded in 1980, Tessella specializes in the application of innovative solutions to scientific, technical and engineering problems, and its offices within the UK, US and the Netherlands have built long-term relationships with organizations at the leading edge of the scientific and engineering world. Tessella is vendor independent and recommends ‘best of breed’ solutions, whether this involves custom software development or off-the-shelf solutions
• HSBC Rail (UK) Ltd owns approximately one third of the UK’s rolling stock and provides a comprehensive range of rolling stock and management services for rail passenger and freight markets. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC Bank plc, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of HSBC Holdings plc.  HSBC Holdings plc serves over 128 million customers worldwide through around 10,000 offices in 83 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa. With assets of some US$2,354 billion at 31 December 2007, HSBC is one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organisations. HSBC is marketed worldwide as ‘the world’s local bank’.
• Southern provides rail services in south London and between central London and the South Coast, through East and West Sussex and Surrey, and parts of Kent and Hampshire. Last year Southern carried 120 million passengers. Their 3,500 staff manage162 stations and operate and maintain a fleet of 300 new and refurbished trains.

Contact details

Tessella Support Services plc (Headquarters)
3 Vineyard Chambers
Abingdon
Oxfordshire, OX14 3PX
UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1235 555511, Fax: +44 (0) 1235 553301

Tessella also has UK offices in Burton upon Trent, Cambridge, Stevenage, Warrington and Winchester

Tessella Support Services plc
Tauro Kantorencentrum
President Kennedylaan 19
2517JK Den Haag
The Netherlands
Tel/Fax: +31 (0) 70 354 2296

Tessella Inc
233 Needham Street, Suite 300
Newton, MA 02464
USA
Tel: (1) 617 454 1220, Fax: (1) 617 454 1001
Tessella Inc also has an office in Washington DC

info@tessella.com

Clinical Scenario Planning to Forecast Clinical Supply Demand, August 19th 2008, Webinar 

Kathy Reinold, Clinical Technologies Product Manager at Tessella, will be presenting the Webinar ‘Clinical Scenario Planning to Forecast Clinical Supply Demand’, on August 19th 2008, at 1:30-3:30 PM, EDT.

Joyce Ripley (Business Analyst, CT Material Services IT, Eli Lilly & Co) … advocating for better understanding of business processes and tools that will enable transformation to adaptive design trials … will moderate the Webinar.

This webinar will focus on effectively utilizing clinical scenario planning for clinical supply demand forecasting and will discuss:

• Defining clinical scenario planning and its utility as an effective predictor
• Simulating worst case scenarios and developing contingency plans
• Evaluating the results of scenario planning to effectively mitigate the risk of the clinical trial
• Incorporating modeling and simulation technologies into scenario planning to increase accuracy
• Translating the collected data into the clinical supply strategy

The Webinar will examine several case studies of successful clinical scenario plans that accurately forecasted trial supply.

Tessella are pleased to be able to offer a $100 discount of the registration fee, please email info@tessella.com for details of how to claim the discount. For full details of the Webinar please visit: http://www.exlpharma.com/eventRegister.php?id=137

Adaptive Trials 2008, September 9-10th 2008, Barcelona  

Tom Parke, Head of Clinical Trials Solutions at Tessella, will be presenting on ‘Scaling up: moving Adaptive Clinical Trials to the mainstream’ covering: 

• Getting the company to take adaptive trials seriously
• Running an adaptive trial was fun but a lot of work. How can we cope with 10+ a year?
• Scaling up the use of adaptive trials across: trial selection, design and execution

At this conference, key industry thought-leaders will equip delegates with ideas on how to ensure successful design and implementation of adaptive clinical trials.

For additional event details of this VIBPharma event please visit: http://www.adaptivetrials-events.com

Clinical Trial Supplies and Packaging, September 24-25th 2008, Amsterdam  

Dr Martin Kimber, Clinical Trials Consultant at Tessella, will be presenting on ‘Controlling the supply chain in Adaptive trials’ discussing:

• How to keep the statisticians happy, yet get the medications to the right place at the right time
• How to use simulations to guess the likely outcomes of Adaptive trials
• Successful strategies for linking possible scenarios to the supply chain model
• What technologies are available to make your life easier?

This Informa Life Sciences organized conference will focus on ways to streamline the management of clinical trial supplies for greater cost reduction and improved performance. Tessella are pleased to be able to offer a 25% discount off the delegate fee, please email info@tessella.com for details. To register please visit: http://www.informa-ls.com/cts

Optimizing Clinical Trials, October 2-3rd 2008, Washington DC 

Tom Parke, Head of Clinical Trials Solutions at Tessella, will be presenting on ‘Getting the value from adaptive learn phase trials’ discussing:

• What is the value proposition of adaptive trials in the learn phase?
• How to we evaluate if an adaptive design is worth doing?
• How can we maximise the benefit to the development program?
• How do we make adaptive learn phase trials a practical possibility?

This Marcus Evans organized conference brings together speakers to discuss how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical trials by reducing trial length, optimizing patient recruitment and lowering expenditures. To register please visit: http://www.marcusevans.com/html/eventdetail.asp?eventID=14315&SectorID=31&pageID=1

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Tessella is a technology and consulting services organization, with the expertise and experience to serve pharmaceutical companies working on new and emerging technologies in drug development. For further information please email info@tessella.com or call the Marketing Department on +44 (0) 1235 555511.

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Our ambitious growth plans provide great opportunities for high-calibre individuals with a scientific and engineering background looking for a career in software development and consultancy.

If you’re interested in what we do please read on to see if Tessella is right for you.

Your background

If you are in either of the following situations, we would like to hear from you:

• Finished your first degree and want to move into software engineering
• Finishing a PhD, DPhil or Post-Doc and want to use your scientific and IT experience in a commercial setting

You should have a strong interest in IT, and its application to business and technical problems, and you must be able to:

• Assimilate new applications/technologies quickly and efficiently
• Work on multiple projects concurrently
• Have good problem solving and customer facing skills

We have a number of opportunities for applicants who have some experience of one or more of our core technologies:

• Microsoft .NET (C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET)
• Visual Basic
• Java (J2SE, J2EE)
• C, C++
• FORTRAN

What we offer

We offer you an opportunity to use the problem solving skills that you have honed in your studies and the IT skills you enjoy using. Our diverse range of clients and technologies will give you the chance to work in new domains, learn new skills and get great job satisfaction.

You’ll have an opportunity to work with some of the most highly qualified people in the UK, Europe and US, on exciting projects. We’ll also give you 20 days training a year to ensure that you can keep learning. All of this is in an environment where you can have a flexible career path, either staying technically focused or working towards a Project Management role – the choice is yours.

Tessella employees volunteered to help with conservation efforts at two sites in Oxford; the Oxford Urban Wildlife Trust’s 6-acre Boundary Brook Nature Reserve and the Ss. Mary and John Churchyard Project.

Out in full force, and with tools supplied by Oxford Urban Wildlife and the Churchyard Project, 48 Tessella employees helped clear over-growth in both sites,the work involved strimming, weeding and raking,  and pruning hedges and trees.. To improve accessibility to the newer areas of the nature reserve the team helped in clearing and laying paths.

Tessella’s efforts will help encourage a varied and thriving ecosystem in a busy urban environment, while the cleared paths ensure the local community can enjoy these wildlife spaces. Both sites rely heavily on volunteers to help maintain the areas. 

David Cole, Analyst Programmer, Tessella, said: ‘The response I received for the Tessella Community Day was overwhelming.  It was great to see everybody contributing and as a team we could make a huge impact  to these important community sites.’

David Cole added: ‘Not only were Tessella contributing to the local community but it also proved to be a perfect team-building day with a difference. It was so popular that I’ve no doubt we’ll return to strengthen these community ties year after year’.

Ruth Conway, who has coordinated the work to transform the churchyard from a derelict no-go area to an attractive quiet green space, says: ‘Being a small team, we cannot manage all the maintenance tasks ourselves.  We are extremely grateful that Tessella employees took time off to prune the conservation hedges, clear overgrown invasive plants, and strim and rake tangled grass.”

Ruth added: ‘We rely heavily on companies like Tessella who volunteer to help us tackle these conservation tasks - it makes all the difference.’

- ends -

Notes to editors:

For press enquiries or to arrange an interview with Tessella please contact Christina Tealdi, Marketing Communications & PR Executive, on +44 (0) 1235 555511 or christina.tealdi@tessella.com

Contact details

Oxford Urban Wild Life
Visit www.ouwg.org.uk

 
info@tessella.com

The Role

Tessella has a hard earned reputation for delivering innovative IT solutions to organisations concerned with scientific research in many unique sectors. These include the JET experiment at UKAEA Culham where we have delivered in excess of 150 man-years of effort over the last 25 years, and other unique organisations such as Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and the new ITER experiment in France.

We are looking for a motivated and knowledgeable individual to join our sales team to grow our business with our existing customers and to drive expansion into new associated prospects. You will work with our technical staff and the marketing team to develop our relationships with these organisations, to identify prospects and to close deals.

Relationships in this field tend to be long term and built on trust. You should be able to take a great interest in the world-beating work performed by our customers, to understand their broad objectives, and to understand how Tessella can add to this using our unique combination of science and IT capability. You must follow through to ensure our teams deliver great value and to ensure the relationship flourishes and expands.

Projects tend to be a combination of consultancy, re-usable systems, third party packages and specially written software. Your role will demand an understanding of how solutions are put together and what the customer needs.

Tessella’s technical team is without equal. All are from the best universities, have good numerate degrees and most have PhD qualifications in relevant disciplines. They love working for your target organisations and will always be willing to help you win more work.
 
Your targets will be government funded research organisations. Sales will usually be direct but in some cases may be in collaboration with major IT or engineering primes. Most organisations are in the UK but some are spread across Europe. As many of the customers are within the public sector, a good understanding of government tendering would be useful.

You will have an annual sales target that you will be incentivised to meet.  The package will depend on your skills and experience but will be a minimum of £50K with a minimum OTE of £70K. Your future role may require selling more varied software services into a broader range of customers.

Tessella’s experience includes:

• Consultancy
• Specification and Design
• Provision of managed software teams
• Delivery of key individuals to perform specific tasks

Typical sales are £50k-£500k and we are hoping for considerable growth over the next three years, particularly at ITER.

Experience

You will have sales experience and be able to show an interest in this domain, and a high-level understanding of the nature of scientific research projects. You will be able to demonstrate an ability to sell complex solutions including existing and new software. Your experience should include identifying opportunities, preparing responses, closing deals and developing long-term relationships with customers and partners at several levels.

You’ll be driven, self-motivated and a team player able to work with a talented technical team. You will have an entrepreneurial, innovative perspective, able to offer new ways of putting together deals. You will be able to communicate complex ideas in simple terms both verbally and in writing. You will have a numerate Degree or equivalent, preferably in the Physical Sciences.

We have created an exciting new role within Tessella’s Abingdon Division. In the past, our developers have carried out all software testing activities themselves. Due to our continued growth and success, we have decided that we need a specialist to be involved in testing our applications and to help push forward our whole approach to testing. The person fulfilling the role will be involved in all aspects of testing throughout the project lifecycle, from initial development testing through to final acceptance by the client.

This is a fantastic opportunity for the right individual, with experience of software testing, who can also show us a vision of how Tessella can transform its testing to deliver robust applications to our clients more quickly and cost-effectively. As this is a new position, you will have the opportunity to carve out a role for yourself and, if you are as successful as we hope, to grow a team that will enable your vision to be realised.

The role will include:

• Working with Project Managers to produce test plans
• Reviewing applications against requirements during development to confirm that all requirements have been met
• Collaborating with developers to ensure that test scripts are adequate and appropriate
• Performing system and regression testing of applications before they are delivered to our clients
• Working with clients as they test and accept Tessella applications, advising and assisting as necessary

You will have the opportunity to work on varied, interesting projects for blue chip organisations and to further your own experience through the projects on which you work.
We will provide you with the support and training that you need to progress in your job and advance your career. A competitive package, including a profit sharing scheme, will ensure that you are well rewarded for your contribution.

Your role will, by its nature, involve finding bugs in developers’ code and you will need the interpersonal skills to handle interactions tactfully and with a sense of teamwork as we deliver to our clients. You will, at times, also need to deal with clients and demonstrate the professionalism and attitude they would expect of Tessella staff.

Your Background

Our Clients are mostly scientists and engineers so a background and interest in these areas is important. We would expect you to have a numerate degree and be able to demonstrate knowledge of software testing, both theoretical and practical. You will already have worked in a software testing role and will have gained experience that will be useful to you in taking on the new opportunities and challenges in this role.

Trial Design Innovation, July 14-15th 2008, Washington DC USA

Tom Parke, Head of Clinical Trials Solutions at Tessella, presented on ‘Utilizing trial design simulation processes to optimize clinical supply before and during the trial’ including:

• The challenges when determining clinical supply requirements for an adaptive trial
• Simulating the adaptive trials and simulating the trial supply to accurately forecast supply
• Preventing clinical supply as a barrier to adaptive trial implementation by adapting the supply to match the adaptive trial
• Case studies of the realized cost-benefit of optimizing clinicla supplies by using design simulation

The ExlPharma Trial Design Innovation conference included case studies from senior-level executives from pharma, biotech and device companies, sharing their experiences, both positive, negative, early and last-phase, when designing, implementing and executing adaptive trials. 

Clinical Trials 2008 Congress, 3-4 June 2008, London

Tom Parke, Tessella’s Head of Clinical Trials Solutions, presented at Visiongian Clinical Trials 2008 Congress, in June 2008, in London. Tom’s presentation, entitled ‘Implementing adaptive clinical trials’ looked at:

• The benefits of adaptive trials
• The design and planning of adaptive trials (why we have to learn to talk to each other)
• What it takes to run an adaptive trial (and how they are different from running conventional trials)
• The infrastructure required for making adaptive clinical trials mainstream (industrializing the process)

Adaptive Designs for Clinical Development, May 13-14th 2008, London

Dr Martin Kimber, Clinical Trials Consultant at Tessella, will present at the 3rd Annual Adaptive Designs for Clinical Development conference, in May 2008, in London.

Many companies have tried Adaptive Clinical Trials, in one guise or another. However, as interest and enthusiasm builds new questions arise. Martin’s presentation, entitled ‘Scaling up: moving Adaptive Clinical Trials to the mainstream’ will cover:

• How do we get the company to take adaptive trials seriously?
• What does the company need to do to take adaptive trials seriously?
• Running an adaptive trial was fun but a lot of work. How are we going to cope with 10 or 20 adaptive trials in one year?
• Scaling up the use of Adaptive Clinical Trials across three areas:
  - Trial selection
  - Trial design
  - Trial execution

The conference is organized by Informa Life Sciences and assembles senior industry operational and statistical decision-makers, and academic experts, to present real data and case studies of adaptive design introduction and implementation. For further information on the conference please visit: www.informa-ls.com/adaptive

Tessella are also exhibiting at the conference and will be delighted to discuss your potential requirements and areas of interest.

Adaptive Designs for Clinical Trials, April 21st-22nd 2008, Boston

Tom Parke, Tessella’s Head of Clinical Trials Solutions, will present at the 4th International Adaptive Designs for Clinical Trials conference, in April 2008, in Boston.

Many companies have tried Adaptive Clinical Trials, in one guise or another. However, as interest and enthusiasm builds new questions arise. Tom’s presentation, entitled ‘Scaling up: moving Adaptive Clinical Trials to the mainstream’ will cover:

• How do we get the company to take adaptive trials seriously?
• What does the company need to do to take adaptive trials seriously?
• Running an adaptive trial was fun but a lot of work. How are we going to cope with 10 or 20 adaptive trials in one year?
• Scaling up the use of Adaptive Clinical Trials across three areas:
  - Trial selection
  - Trial design
  - Trial execution

Keynote presentations will be given by: Jerald Schindler of Merck Research Laboratories and Mike Krams of Wyeth Research. For further information on this IBC conference please visit: www.IBCLifeSciences.com/adaptive

Tessella are also exhibiting at the conference and will be delighted to discuss your potential requirements and areas of interest.

Adaptive Designs in Clinical Drug Development, February 6-7th 2008, London

Tom Parke, Head of Clinical Trial Solutions at Tessella, delivered a presentation at the Adaptive Designs In Clinical Drug Development conference, in February 2008, in London.

The presentation, entitled ‘Lesson’s from Tessella’s current experience helping top-pharma companies set up and run their first adaptive does-finding studies’, looked at the differences between traditional clinical trials and adaptive clinical trials from Tessella’s understanding. Tom showed how it can seem that the rules for running adaptive trials may seem unconventional compared to the rules for traditional trials and which are the main differences that have to be addressed. He looked at how these issues have been tackled and how he sees the practice of adaptive clinical trials moving forward.

This conference, organized by SMi, was designed to enable attendees to tackle the changes in the dynamic clinical trials market, and turn them into a competitive advantage. For further information on the conference please visit: www.smi-online.co.uk/adaptivedesigns.asp

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Adaptive Clinical Trials are a groundbreaking progression, which attempt to increase the efficiency of clinical trials by breaking out of the confines of conventional experimental design. For almost a decade, Tessella has been working with pharmaceutical clients in this area, including supporting four of the top-ten international pharmaceutical companies. For further information on Tessella’s experience in Adaptive Clinical Trials, please email info@tessella.com or call the Marketing Department on +44 (0) 1235 555511.