Toronto Stock Exchange Symbol: SXC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                      

SYSTEMS XCELLENCE RENEWS ASP CONTRACT WITH SMCRx INC.

- 3-year deal valued over $1,000,000 - 

MILTON, ON, August 15, 2002 -- Systems Xcellence Inc. (“SXC” or “Company”) (TSX: SXC) a leading provider of healthcare transaction management software throughout the pharmaceutical benefits supply chain, today announced that it has renewed its Application Service Provider (ASP) contract with SMCRx Inc. (“SMCRx”) of Placerville, California. SMCRx is a subsidiary of Safeway Inc., one of the largest food and drug retailers in North America. All figures are in Canadian dollars.

SXC will provide SMCRx with ASP-versions of RxCLAIM (for pharmacy benefit management) and RxTRACK (a data warehouse and information analysis tool) for a three-year period. The value of the contract would increase should the number of transactions rise on a year-over-year basis.  

“SMCRx has been a client of ours since 1997 and we are pleased to retain their business as they are currently experiencing significant growth in their transaction volumes,” said Gordon S. Glenn, President & CEO of SXC. “For mid-size Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBM) such as SMCRx, our outsourced ASP solutions help to control their costs while maintaining high quality client service and support. SXC is unique in our industry in that we can deploy our solutions either on an outsourced basis from our processing centers, or as licensed software applications that can be run in-house.”

In addition to providing flexibility in healthcare benefit plan design and management, RxCLAIM offers SXC’s customers control over the fulfillment of third-party prescription drug claims in the retail pharmacy environment. RxTRACK can be used in conjunction with RxCLAIM and is a highly versatile reporting tool that provides valuable business intelligence and drug utilization information.

“SXC’s products offer the flexibility and scalability necessary for us to quickly innovate and customize our solutions to respond to the evolving needs of our customers,” said Merle Jarvill, President of SMCRx. “We look forward to continuing our association with SXC and to exploring new business opportunities.”

 About SMCRx Inc.

As a subsidiary of Safeway Inc., SMCRx maintains a network of almost 45,000 pharmacies in the United States and Canada, providing unique full service prescription benefit management services to participants in an effort to manage the costs associated with prescription benefit fulfillment. The SMCRx on-line system confirms eligibility and assists the pharmacist in monitoring on-going drug therapy through the use of the "Concurrent Drug Utilization Review" (DUR) program. The Company has expanded its services for covered members to include prescription card development, enhanced network access, enrollment maintenance, enhanced management reports, and a mail order option.

 About Systems Xcellence, Inc.

Systems Xcellence (SXC) is headquartered in Milton, Ontario with offices and processing centres in Lombard, Illinois; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Victoria, British Columbia. SXC is a leading provider of healthcare information technology solutions and services to the healthcare benefits management industry. The Company’s product offerings and solutions combine a wide range of software applications, ASP processing services and professional services, designed for many of the largest organizations in the pharmaceutical supply chain, such as pharmacy benefit managers, managed care organizations, retail pharmacy chains and other healthcare intermediaries. 

The Company’s products offer its customers comprehensive pharmacy benefits management, claims switching and processing, drug dispensing, data warehousing and analysis, and rebate contract management systems. SXC delivers these solutions to its customers as software products bundled with systems implementation and consulting services, or on an ASP basis from its data centres in Scottsdale, Arizona and Lombard, Illinois. The Company’s shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol SXC.  SXC can be found on the Internet at www.sxc.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations. These forward-looking statements entail various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in these forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties about the Company's business are more fully discussed in the Management Discussion and Analysis published in the Company's annual report.

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