SAN RAMON, California—May 1, 2007—Elsevier MDL has announced a dramatic improvement to its online DiscoveryGate® platform that will help scientists immediately get a comprehensive view of vital scientific information. Now a single search lets researchers find integrated and linked information from the highly acclaimed Beilstein Database and 22 other scientific databases covering bioactivity, synthetic methodology, chemical sourcing, drug safety, pharmacology and more.

The integration of data from the Beilstein Database with other DiscoveryGate content follows the recent acquisition of the Beilstein Database by Elsevier subsidiary, MDL Information Systems GmbH. All 9.9 million chemical structures from the Beilstein Database have been added to the DiscoveryGate Compound Index, including 6.5 million unique structures. DiscoveryGate now covers over 27 million chemical structures, more than 17 million reactions and the world's largest collection of observed chemical properties, with well over 500 million experimentally measured values.

"We're delighted to deliver this enhancement to the research community," said Lars Barfod, President and CEO of Elsevier MDL. "With DiscoveryGate, researchers can quickly find relevant information and link among a range of scientific data sources hosted on the system, as well as link to important external sources such as ScienceDirect, PubChem, GeneGo and Derwent World Patents Index. The inclusion of the Beilstein Database in the Compound Index underlying this rich network of information is a fantastic gain for scientists."

Michiel Kolman, Managing Director, Elsevier MDL in Frankfurt, where the Beilstein Database is produced, stated, "This connection between Beilstein data and other DiscoveryGate content, including the closely related MDL® Patent Chemistry Database, is exactly the sort of integration that our customers have desired, and we're now able to deliver following the acquisition of the Beilstein Database. We will continue to pursue similar opportunities to bring more efficiency to researchers' workflows."

The DiscoveryGate online platform links and indexes scientific literature, databases and reference works to provide comprehensive answers to research questions. Powered by new-generation MDL® Isentris® technology, DiscoveryGate serves tens of thousands of researchers at over 500 leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemical and academic organizations worldwide.

DiscoveryGate is unmatched for its wealth of experimental data from journals, patent documents, chemical catalogs, major reference works and FDA Approval Packages; searching this content retrieves closely related results from all databases for a given query.

The Beilstein Database covers organic chemistry from 1771 to date. It contains over 9.9 million compounds, 10 million reactions (making it the world's largest reaction database) and 320 million experimentally observed chemical properties. It also contains over 900,000 original author abstracts from 1980-present, as well as pharmacological and ecotoxicological data describing the bioactivity of organic chemicals.

For more information about DiscoveryGate, visit www.mdl.com or DiscoveryGate®.

Elsevier MDL provides informatics, database and workflow solutions that accelerate successful R&D by improving the speed and quality of scientists’ decision making. Researchers around the world depend on Elsevier MDL for innovative and reliable discovery informatics software solutions and services augmented by 400 Elsevier chemistry and life sciences journals and related products. For more information, visit www.mdl.com. Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. For more information, visit www.elsevier.com.

Elsevier is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc, a world-leading publisher and information provider. Reed Elsevier's ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange). For more information, visit www.reedelsevier.com.