Digital Island, Stanford U Develop Pharmaceutical Ad Software

Honolulu-based Digital Island, a provider of e-business solutions, said that it is co-developing with Stanford University’s HighWire Press a new application that helps to automate country-by-country regulatory compliance for online pharmaceutical advertising.

Digital Island’s patent-pending TraceWare technology is the foundation for the new software. Using a unique algorithm, TraceWare maps IP addresses to an atlas of country-of-origin identification codes. When coupled with an application designed for real-time processing of that data, TraceWare’s “geographic intelligence” then allows the application to automatically send the pharmaceutical advertisements localized for that region.

A long-standing Digital Island customer, Stanford’s HighWire Press produces more than 90 online journals, including SCIENCE, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, and Cell. The beta version of the co-developed TraceWare-based application is due in the first quarter of 1999.

“Our customers have eagerly expressed interest in selling advertising in order to tap new online global markets, but the regulations and availability of pharmaceuticals varies significantly by country” said John Sack, associate publisher of HighWire Press. “We immediately recognized TraceWare as a viable solution for overcoming those barriers to market.”