ICON, the global provider of outsourced development services based in Ireland, has inaugurated a 20,000 sq ft development centre in Trivandrum, India.
To date, ICON has fully trained 50 employees to work in the office on Trivandrum’s Technopark campus. Within the next six months, it aims to take another 20,000 sq ft space on the campus and to increase its workforce in Trivandrum to 300.
The plan is to widen the use of ICON offices in India as part of the company’s international and integrated delivery capability. “We see India being imperative to competing in our marketplaces and we will continue to invest in our Indian business accordingly,” explained Malcolm Burgess, executive vice president of ICON Clinical Research.
The Trivandrum office is the third centre to be established by ICON in India. The company has a full-service central laboratory in Bangalore and a clinical research division in Chennai. Burgess cited the “impressive levels of quality and productivity that we have seen in our Chennai office” among the reasons for expanding further into the Indian market.
“Our purpose is to provide high quality pharmaceutical development services to our clients that will help them to reduce their costs, expedite development and establish benefits of treatments, enhancing lives of patients around the world,” he commented. “We see the continued expansion in India as furthering our ability to provide high quality pharmaceutical services.”
ICON has already conducted a wide range of clinical studies across all therapeutic areas in the Asia-Pacific region, with particular expertise in oncology, cardiovascular, central nervous system and metabolic disorder trials, it notes.
The company recently boosted its presence in another important emerging market, China, through an alliance with local contract research organisation Tigermed Consulting.
