MAY 2008 | Archives
Welcome to the latest edition of the Atrion Edge
e-newsletter, a quarterly online publication showcasing Atrion’s
recent activities, news and industry information.
Message
from the President
With
all the buzz surrounding REACH Legislation’s first set of
deadlines this year, 2008 has so far proven to be a busy year for
Atrion as well as many of our clients. In April Atrion announced
the launch of a new REACH specific offering: REACHtracker™,
in collaboration with its partner Actio Corporation. We are
also pleased to announce the successful completion of a beta test
program for Atrion's bi-directional IUCLID 5 interface
REACHexchange™. Atrion's REACH solutions were
created in direct response to the sense of urgency now being felt by
our customers and the market place to address REACH compliance issues
pre-emptively.
All of Atrion's REACH offerings are integral parts of Atrion’s
Product Compliance Solution (Software, Content, and Services) which,
as you know, in turn is backed by our years of regulatory expertise. We
are excited to be the first out on the market with these innovative
REACH solutions because they deliver what is needed now
–automation of key components to REACH readiness.
Finally, I would also like to take this opportunity to invite you to
join us at one of our Regional User Group Meetings later this
year. The Regional format of this year's User Group Meeting will
allow all users to share local regulatory and technical expertise and
best practices for product compliance requirements. With your
cooperation and participation, we hope to repeat last year’s
success. Details of this year’s events can be found below.
Sincerely,
Patrick J. Lavoie
Atrion CEO/President
Latest News
Atrion International in partnership with
Actio, recently announced the availability of REACHtracker™, a Software
as a Solution (SaaS ) offering for
managing supply chain communication and substance inventory for
pre-registration and registration obligations under Europe’s new REACH
legislation. REACHtracker™
enables companies to initiate supply chain cooperation by leveraging structured
e-mail communications and secure on-line questionnaires that facilitate the
otherwise complex, time-consuming process of gathering and managing supplier
substance registration intentions - the critical first step towards REACH
compliance. For more information please visit our REACHtracker specific
web page: http://www.atrionintl.com/REACHTracker.html
Atrion recently announced the
successful completion of its REACHexchangeTM beta testing
program with seven large multinational clients (including DSM and Akzo Nobel).
The results of the beta testing validated the ease-of-use and practicality
of REACHexchange’sTM bidirectional exchange of data between
Atrion’s Intelligent Authoring® (IA) application and local instances of
a company’s IUCLID 5 system—the tool for registering chemical substances under
the European Union’s REACH legislation.
The REACHexchangeTM
Beta testers confirmed that the REACHexchangeTM interface
eliminates risks associated with inconsistent data between registration dossiers
and SDS’s, due to duplicate data entry.
This is an important, costly and time consuming hurdle to overcome for
companies, especially as they begin to devote scarce internal resources in
order to prepare for REACH pre-registration which starts on June 1st,
2008.
For more information about
either REACHexchange or Atrion’s Work Group, please contact Clarine Sieger at: csieger@atrionintl.com
After the
remarkable success of last year’s International User Group (IUG) Meetings, Atrion
International is now ramping up for this year’s Regional User Group (RUG) meetings which will be held
at two separate venues. For
participants in North America, this year’s RUG Meeting will be held on Oct.
6-10, 2008 at the Fort Lauderdale Grande
Hotel & Yacht Club in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida. Participants for the European,
RUG 2008 are invited to join us on Oct. 27-30, 2008 at Marriott Brussels in Belgium.
This year’s highlights and topics will take on regional
flavors and will include regulatory sessions covering global compliance
requirements; impact of REACH and Atrion’s Product Compliance Solution;
chemical control legislation and GHS; and latest product and company releases.
For more information about the
Atrion Regional User Group Meetings, please contact Michele Lavoie at
+1.514.337.2114 x 286 or send an email to IUG2008@atrionintl.com.
Product Developments and Updates
On the regulatory data side, a lot of
progress was achieved over the last 2 quarters. Atrion has provided additional
ecotoxicity data in IA and sixty-nine (69) new regulatory lists were added to
our data products. Detailed information
can be found in Atrion’s Data Product Release Notes which as been sent to you
as part of our normal maintenance communication process. Below you’ll find some of the highlights.
The new functionality for handling
'Generic Lists' in IA 4.0.5 provides customers the ability to access fifty (50)
new lists of controlled chemicals. Some highly customer requested lists
include:
- Clean Air Act
Section 112(b) Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs)
- DEA List I Chemicals (Precursor Chemicals)
- DEA List II
Chemicals (Essential Chemicals)
- EU Prior Informed
Consent (Chemicals subject to the
international PIC procedure; Part I, II, III)
- Chemical
Weapons Convention List Schedule (I, II & III Chemicals)
The addition of the New Zealand
Inventory (NZIoC) list is another significant achievement for Atrion. With this enhancement, Atrion now provides
support for all country inventory lists!
Another significant addition is the introduction of vertical specific
content for the Flavours and Fragrances Industry. Atrion
implemented the EFFA and IFRA Code of Practice (CoP). This
implementation includes data, forms, and calculation logic (rules /
Algos), which is proving to be a great time saving tool for our
clients, when it comes to creating reports and documents in compliance
to these CoPs.
Since REACH is on everybody's agenda
these days, Atrion is constantly implementing lists that are relevant to this
burdensome legislation. Just a few days
after the PBT, vPvB lists were published on the web, the Atrion team worked quickly
to incorporate them into our Product Compliance Solution.
At Atrion, we always make a concerted effort to provide our customers
with accurate and reliable translations of chemical names for hazard
communications. In recent releases, the content team integrated
names for EINECS chemicals (~100 000 chemicals) in eight (8) additional
languages.
Atrion Participated in the International GHS
Conference in Marseille, France
Atrion International
participated in one of Europe’s largest government and trade association
sponsored GHS events, which was held in Marseille, France from February 25th to
the 26th. The French competent authority for GHS, INRS, along with their German
counterpart, and a number of industry associations collaborated to put together
a comprehensive 'Expert GHS Program' which attracted some 350 delegates from
different governments, industry associations and private companies.
While the focus of discussion for most delegates
and other solution providers were around 'acknowledging the problems' caused by
the 'flexible' way in which countries are implementing GHS, Atrion was able to
demonstrate live, how its automated, prepackaged solution could handle national
GHS variations for a single product.
Atrion Presents Strategic REACH Messaging at the Oracle Manufacturing Summit
During
a breakfast event at the Oracle Manufacturing Summit held this past
March in Denver, Atrion's Chief Strategic Officer, Mr. John Phyper spoke about REACH and REACH-readiness for
North American companies. Mr. Phyper’s presentation on the
implications of REACH was well received by those in attendance as it
brought to light not only the scope and scale of the REACH Legislation,
but also provided a road map as to how companies could ensure they are
REACH ready. The Oracle Manufacturing Summit was organized to
discuss manufacturing topics such as REACH and best practices; and to
foster a sense of community amongst customers, partners and
Oracle.
Atrion at GlobalChem 2008
Atrion
International participated in the Global Chemical Regulations
Conference (GlobalChem) held in Baltimore, Maryland from March 17th-19th, 2008. GlobalChem is an annual conference, which
provides educational and informative sessions for chemical industry
professionals. This year, the conference topics were related to
Product Stewardship, ranging from actual regulatory concerns and
reaching out to global regulatory perspectives.
Aad van Keulen, Atrion Vice-President for Business Development, Addresses American Exporters at EU Chemicals Regulation 2008
With
REACH in force as of June 1st, 2007 and pre-registration just around
the corner (June 1st, 2008), Atrion's VP for Business Development, Aad
van Keulen addressed various corporate regulatory specialists at the EU
Chemicals Regulation 2008 held in Washington, DC this past April
8-9. The purpose of the conference was to provide essential
REACH-related information to American companies exporting substances,
products and/or articles to Europe. At this conference organized by
Informa Life Sciences, Mr. Van Keulen promoted REACHtracker™ and facilitated discussions on the big picture of REACH-IT.
Atrion CEO Speaks at Infor F&B Summit
Atrion’s CEO, Patrick J. Lavoie was a guest speaker at the
Infor Food and Beverage Summit held this April 9-10, in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Lavoie spoke about “Regulatory
Compliance and it’s impact on
the F&B market”. The summit, which was attended by some
60 Food & Beverage delegates, allowed Atrion to highlight
to the growing importance of regulatory compliance in protecting
brand image in the marketplace. Atrion’s expanding
portfolio of products now include offerings specifically targeted to
the Food & Beverage area, such as the new Rhea regulatory search and analysis tool.
Atrion at ILMA Management Forum
Atrion’s Chief Strategic Officer, Mr. John Phyper addressed CEOs, Presidents and upper management of
ILMA member companies at the 2008 ILMA Management Forum. The event was held in Santa Ana Pueblo, New
Mexico on April 10th-12th, 2008.
Mr. Phyper was accompanied by Daniel Lavoie of the Regulatory Services
Group providing support to ILMA members.
During the forum, ILMA announced it was creating a REACH Consortium,
which Atrion will support by providing services related to document management.
Atrion at the Food Technology and Innovation Forum
Atrion
International recently participated at the Food Technology and
Innovation Forum held in Chicago, Illinois last May 1-2, 2008.
The forum brought together R&D, Innovation and New Product
Development professionals to discuss the latest innovations and shape
the future of the food industry. The event was successful in
outlining innovation strategies and approaches used to ensure that food
safety and regulatory requirements are adequately incorporated into
internal processes. Atrion jointly participated with our partner
Infor and showcased our Regulatory Analysis Solution (RAS).
The solution integrates Atrion's regulatory engine with Infor's product
lifecycle management software, allowing early screening of requlatory
requirements and identification of potential impacts in the product
development phase.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Watch out for Atrion’s participation in these upcoming
events:
HICCS Congress 08,
organised by the HELSINKI REACH CENTRE in Helsinki, Finland – May 20-22, 2008
International Conference on Chemical Control
(ChemCon 2008) in Rome, Italy – June 9-13,
2008
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