PRINCETON, NJ, May 1, 2006 -- Covance Inc. (NYSE: CVD) today announced several developments that further strengthen the laboratory testing capabilities provided by its Covance Central Laboratory Services unit in the Asia Pacific region. First, Covance announced that its own dedicated laboratory in Singapore and its laboratory service provider in Shanghai, China -- Huashan Hospital Center of Laboratory Medicine -- have both achieved certification by the College of American Pathologists (CAP). Second, Covance announced agreements whereby Japan's two largest central laboratories -- Mitsubishi Kagaku Bio-Clinical Laboratories, Inc. (MBC) and SRL Medisearch, Inc. -- will service its clients' clinical trials in Japan, through the unique Covance Virtual Central Laboratory service. Finally, Covance announced the expansion of kit production facilities in Sydney, Australia and a quadrupling of its laboratory testing facilities in Singapore, including expanded quantitative PCR testing.

"With the increasing interest of biopharmaceutical clients in integrating China, Japan, Singapore, India and other countries in the Asia Pacific region into their global studies, these announcements demonstrate Covance's continued commitment and investment to help our clients increase the speed of drug development and reduce study costs through the conduct of clinical studies in this region of the world," said John Marolf, General Manager of Covance Central Laboratory Services, Asia Pacific and Southern Africa. "With the combination of our broad, expanded portfolio of laboratory testing capabilities, CAP certifications in Singapore and China, and the extension of our global Virtual Central Laboratory capabilities in Japan, Covance continues to provide the industry's most comprehensive and flexible clinical trial laboratory service solutions to the growing numbers of sponsors conducting clinical studies in the Asia Pacific Rim."

Covance Central Laboratory Services has exclusive, dedicated laboratory operations in the United States, Switzerland, Singapore and Australia and a dedicated operating agreement in Shanghai, China with the Huashan Hospital laboratory. With the announcement of CAP certification within the Singapore and Huashan Hospital laboratories, Covance now leads the industry with a network of four CAP-certified and five Level 1 NGSP-certified laboratory testing facilities around the world. In addition, the company provides the Asia Pacific region's broadest portfolio of laboratory testing capabilities. In Singapore and Sydney, Covance laboratories provide routine chemistry, hematology, urinalysis and serology, and have recently been expanded to provide additional laboratory testing services. In both the China and Singapore laboratories, the company has expanded its special testing services in the areas of microbiology, immunology, special chemistry and quantitative PCR testing in HIV, HBV and HCV. Since 2000, Covance has completed over 550 studies for 75 biopharmaceutical sponsors covering 4,800 sites and over 45,000 patients in the Asia Pacific region.

The expansion of Covance Virtual Central Laboratory testing services in Japan through the agreement with MBC and SRL Medisearch, Inc. enables the company to offer the broadest global laboratory network, with 19 premier VCL regional laboratories and over 800 local laboratories in more than 35 countries around the world. Speaking to the agreement with the two Japanese central laboratories, Jaap Dijkman, MD, MBA, General Manager of Covance Virtual Central Laboratory commented. "Japan, like China, poses interesting challenges for clinical trial sponsors -- the combination of well established, high-quality regional laboratories in Japan and our global central laboratory capabilities provides our customers with an optimal solution for integrating Japanese clinical trial data into their global studies without compromising investigator needs. Covance Virtual Central Laboratory can now provide clinical trial study sponsors with the ability to collect their laboratory test results from Japanese investigator sites and other countries in Asia Pacific and to integrate this data seamlessly into a single, combinable global database."

About Covance Virtual Central Laboratory

The Covance Virtual Central LaboratorySM (VCL) service is designed for clinical trial studies which require fast turnaround time -- such as acute care or oncology studies -- or studies in regions, where transport logistics or other reasons preclude the use of a traditional central laboratory. This unique service uses proprietary Covance calibration processes and technology and a network of VCL regional and local laboratories to harmonize laboratory results, and collate the data into a single, global database. In addition, when a sponsor utilizes both Covance Central Laboratory Services and the Covance Virtual Central Laboratory service, sponsors are able to receive near real-time access to laboratory data through Covance's secure web-based LabLinkSM on-line laboratory data access tool. The Covance Virtual Central Laboratory service has been used in over 110 clinical trial protocols in more than 30 countries since 1995. The data from these studies have supported over 35 successful product submission and approvals in both the United States and Europe.