ICON Selected to Manage Lilly Clinical Trial Site Set Up and Monitoring in Europe

DUBLIN - Strategic Partnership Leverages ICON’s Extensive European Capabilities

ICON plc, (NASDAQ: ICLR; ISIN:IE0005711209), a global provider of outsourced development services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, today announced that it has signed a strategic partnership with Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) to manage the company’s clinical trial site set up and monitoring in Europe for Lilly managed studies. The agreement, which is subject to the relevant employee consultation processes, is a continuation of Lilly’s ongoing transformation of its research and development organisation and follows Lilly’s selection of ICON to manage its clinical data management business outside of the US, which was announced in November 2008.

“Today’s announcement marks another milestone in the successful partnership between ICON and Lilly,” commented Peter Gray, CEO at ICON. “We have worked together to create a truly flexible model that better meets Lilly’s patient and portfolio needs and will also drive productivity within Lilly’s clinical operations in Europe. We look forward to continuing to assist Lilly with its transformation initiatives and to delivering the quality services that will expedite their drug development pipelines.”

“We are constantly evaluating how we can do things better to increase our flexibility and focus our internal efforts on our core capabilities,” commented Jeff Kasher, Lilly Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Global Clinical Development.” This strategic agreement enables us to leverage ICON’s significant expertise in clinical trial monitoring and site management in Europe and will increase our ability to speed innovative medicines to patients.”

About ICON plc

ICON plc is a global provider of outsourced development services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. The Company specialises in the strategic development, management and analysis of programs that support clinical development - from compound selection to Phase I-IV clinical studies. ICON currently has over 7,100 employees, operating from 71 locations in 38 countries.

Further information is available at www.iconplc.com

About Lilly

Lilly, a leading innovation-driven corporation, is developing a growing portfolio of first-in-class and best-in-class pharmaceutical products by applying the latest research from its own worldwide laboratories and from collaborations with eminent scientific organizations. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., Lilly provides answers - through medicines and information - for some of the world’s most urgent medical needs.

ICON/ICLR-G

US contact: Courtney Judd +1-212-445-8365 cjudd@webershandwick.com UK contact: Erika Aalto +44(0)20-706-70-214 eaalto@webershandwick.com

Source: ICON plc

US contact: Courtney Judd, +1-212-445-8365, cjudd at webershandwick.com; UK contact: Erika Aalto, +44(0)20-706-70-214, eaalto at webershandwick.com