Contract research news in brief
pharmafile | January 23, 2012 | News story | Research and Development |Â Â CoreLab Partners and Acurian, Quintiles, vivoPharmaÂ
Quintiles invests in new biomarket firm and sets up a new office in China, plus updates from vivoPharma, CoreLab Partners and Acurian.
Multinational contract research organisation (CRO) Quintiles has made an investment in a new UK company – called Oxford Cancer Biomarkers – that will provide consultancy on personalised medicine and develop new cancer biomarkers. The new company will develop biomarkers using CancerNav, a proprietary DNA- and protein-based assay technology platform developed by University of Oxford researchers. It will operate offices in Oxford and Reading and will have a strategic relationship with Quintiles.
Meanwhile, Quintiles has also opened a new centre in Dalian, China, that will provide business management and project management services to customers in China and nearby markets such as Japan and South Korea. The centre will focus on data management, biostatistics, medical writing, pharmacovigilance, post-marketing safety surveillance and back-office support functions. The new facility is expected to provide employment to 500 workers within the next several years. Quintiles previously opened a similar unit in Bangalore, India, which employs around 1,000 staff.
vivoPharm has negotiated rights to co-market a series of oncology models, developed by Germany’s Experimental Pharmacology & Oncology (EPO), in the US market. Berlin-based EPO has a collection of primary patient-derived tumours that thanks to the agreement will be available for the first time to US cancer research institutions to help validate drug candidates. The new patient-derived models complement vivoPharm’s existing portfolio of animal models of tumours.
CoreLab Partners, a US-based specialist in cardiac safety testing and imaging services, has expanded its presence in Asia with the opening of a new office in Tokyo, Japan. The CRO already has a presence in Japan via a marketing agreement with Suzuken, but said opening the new unit would “further establish the global brand in the Pacific Rim”.
Patient recruitment specialist Acurian has passed another milestone by reaching more than 70 million patients in its opt-in database of people willing to take part in clinical trials of new medicines. The company claims that the largest database offered by rival companies contains less than 4 million people.
Phil Taylor
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