Contract research news in brief
pharmafile | October 13, 2009 | News story | Research and Development |Â Â CROÂ
Pharmafocus' latest round-up of contract research news includes another CRO heading into private equity hands, changing requirements for the clinicaltrials.gov registry and new contracts for Sygnature and BioFocus.
MDS Pharma Services is planning to sell its global central laboratory (GCL) operations to private equity firm Czura Thornton, with the deal expected to close before the end of the year. GCL provides a range of late-stage laboratory and electrocardiogram services supporting clinical trials, including the Apollo CLPM (central lab protocol management) platform, and will soon be rebranded. MDS has been divesting its late-stage clinical research units in recent months in order to focus on early-stage R&D. In June, the firm announced the sale of its phase II to IV clinical trial operations to INC.
Clinicaltrials.gov, the clinical trial database operated by the US National Institutes of Health, has expanded its registration requirements to include full disclosure of adverse event information. Until now clinical trial sponsors were required to provide primary and secondary results data and baseline patient characteristics within a set period (1-2 years) from the end of the trial. Registration has been mandatory since 2007 for phase II-IV controlled clinical trials of US Food and Drug Administration-regulated drugs, biologics, and devices, and voluntary for phase I studies.
UK medicinal chemistry specialist Sygnature Chemical Services has been contracted by Heptares Therapeutics to generate a novel chemical library that the drugmaker will screen against one of its G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) targets. Heptares has developed a platform technology called StaRs (stabilised receptors) that can be used to make and purify functional GPCRs for use in drug discovery. It is estimated that 50% of all prescription drugs interact with GPCRs.
BioFocus DPI, the service division of Belgian drug discovery firm Galapagos, has signed a deal that allows it to offer a GPCR screening tool developed by DiscoveRx of the USA to its pharmaceutical customers. The co-marketing agreement gives BioFocus a license for DiscoveRx' PathHunter beta-Arrestin GPCR platform, which detects activation of the receptor, and HitHunter assay for cyclic AMP (cAMP) detection, as well as associated cell lines. A subset of GPCRs affect cAMP levels when they are stimulated by agonists.
US contract research firm MDS Biosciences has moved to a new headquarters in its hometown of St. Paul, Minneapolis, increasing its laboratory space two-fold. The company said the new location would increase its capacity for in-vitro testing services.
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