July 25, 2006 - Fresh Meadows, NY, and Midvale, UT – Data Conversion Laboratory (DCL) (www.dclab.com) and OntoReason (www.ontoreason.com) announced a strategic partnership to deliver SPL label complete with coding of prescription drug label highlights in the FDA Physician Labeling Rule (PLR) format.  The combined service will provide pharmaceutical companies with a cost effective solution for converting paper-based prescription drug label information to the FDA required HL7 Structured Product Label standard.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and HL7 have been working together to develop a standard for communicating product label information that can be used in clinical information systems and allow easier access to package insert information for consumers.

DCL is a leading provider of conversion services for mission critical applications. In the Health Sciences area DCL works with over 75 sponsors worldwide to facilitate compliance with the FDA’s SPL initiative. With over 600 SPL conversions completed, DCL has worked with more sponsors for SPL conversions than all other vendors combined.

OntoReason was established in 2006 to provide national standards based terminology and vocabulary services coupled with intelligent processing.  Its health ontology and terminology services have been tailored to provide automated SPL coding services coupled with detailed expert review and code selection documentation to the Pharmaceutical Industry. OntoReason’s SPL services provides coding and terminology assistance for structured highlights vocabulary elements, supplementing DCL’s conversion service.

OntoReason chief knowledge engineer, and subject matter expert, Dr. Cecil Lynch, is a direct contributor to SNOMED and Co-chairs the HL7 Vocabulary Technical Committee. He has extensive experience helping to solve terminology issues across the Federal Health Architecture including the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control.

“Our goal is to provide the most affordable and accurate service in the market, and looking ahead OntoReason has the strongest automated solutions for medical terminology coding and translation available anywhere.” said Craig Cunningham, COO of OntoReason. “DCL has pioneered the affordable document translation services industry and is a leader in SPL conversion. Our combined service provides a convenient and reliable answer to meeting FDA requirements. We look forward to providing advanced medical terminology services and intelligent translation technologies to help DCL continue to deliver affordable, innovative services for years to come.”

“OntoReason’s technology is a great leap forward in medical coding and, combined with DCL’s industry-leading SPL conversion service, provides a much-needed service to the pharmaceutical industry,” said Mark Gross, DCL’s President.