Contract research news in brief
pharmafile | August 10, 2012 | News story | Research and Development |Â Â Accenture, Charles River Labs, ICON, Octagon Research Solutions, Phlexglobal, Quanticate, VerumÂ
ICON plans UK investment, Verum expands in the US, plus updates from Charles River, Phlexglobal, Accenture/Octagon and Quanticate.
Contract research organisation (CRO) ICON has said it plans to expand its facility based at Manchester Royal Infirmary in the UK after signing for a 40,000 sq. ft. site at nearby Citilabs, the new name for the former Royal Eye Hospital. ICON already operates a clinical pharmacology unit at MRI, where it carries out early-stage drug trials, but plans to transfer all operations to the new location when it opens in the fourth quarter of 2013.
German CRO Verum has opened its first US office in Carlsbad, California that will be headed by industry veteran Kristi Clark. Verum specialises in conducting trials in central and eastern European (CEE) countries, where it says studies are quicker and cheaper to carry out. “Our goal is to bring more client trials to CEE countries so they can see the difference faster enrolment and regional expertise provides,” said the CRO’s chief executive and co-founder Christian Sacher.
Charles River Laboratories reported second quarter earnings of $31 million, down 6%, on revenues down marginally to $285 million. The performance was in line with analysts’ expectations and came on the back of a return to form for its pre-clinical services (PCS) division, up a point to $111 million, while research models and services fell 2.6% to $174 million due mainly to currency factors. PCS’ return to positive growth was a result of greater demand for its non-Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) discovery offering, as well as regulated safety assessment and biopharmaceutical services.
Clinical trial administration company Phlexglobal has expanded its document management facilities in Chesham, UK, and says it will hire an additional 20 staff in 2012. The trial master file (TMF) specialist said the refurbished building has 8,000 sq. ft. of specialist document storage space, up from 2,000 before, with additional staff facilities and training areas for in-house and client courses. “The industry may be moving towards electronic management of documents … but the filing and storage of paper documents is still a crucial part of the TMF process for almost all companies,” commented the firm’s global business development director Karen Redding.
Management consultancy and outsourcing company Accenture has signed an agreement to acquire Octagon Research Solutions, a specialist in clinical and regulatory information management solutions and software based in the US, UK and India. Accenture said the acquisition would boost its capabilities to include comprehensive clinical and regulatory services, from clinical data collection to regulatory submissions management, as well as its business process outsourcing services portfolio targeting the pharmaceutical industry. Financial terms were not disclosed.
US CRO Quanticate has boosted its managerial team with the appointment of Sally Du Toit as vice president for pharmacovigilance and Chris Cramer as vice president of clinical data management. The company said the new appointments would help the firm shape it service in light of new pharmacovigilance regulations, the launch of its new centralised service provision (CSP) platform and the opening of an office in India. Du Toit joins Quanticate from Aptiv Solutions while Cramer was formerly with PharmaNet.
Phil Taylor
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