US-based biopharmaceutical services company Quintiles has opened an expanded facility for Phase I clinical trials at Guy’s Hospital in London, UK.
The additional capacity for 35 patients and healthy volunteers gives Quintiles a total of 105 Phase I beds in London and 385 worldwide. That resource is set to increase further in late 2010 when Quintiles opens a Phase I unit in Hyderabad, India, initially with 50 beds and with space for expansion to 100.
Situated on the 14th floor of Guy’s Hospital, the expanded unit in London is adjacent to one of only five ‘Comprehensive’ National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) in the UK, enabling Quintiles to plug into the country’s translational research effort.
The CRO “will work closely with experts from the BRC as appropriate, to drive forward the translation of science onto the wards – from ‘bench to bedside’”, it said.
Eddie Caffrey, senior vice president, Global Phase I for Quintiles, placed the new resources in the context of intense pressure on the biopharmaceutical industry to improve efficiency in the face of declining R&D productivity.
“Effective early-stage development can have significant impact on speed and cost of the overall development process,” Caffrey commented. “Our customers need a holistic solution that combines fast and cost-efficient regulatory studies with advanced scientific expertise and techniques such as modelling and simulation, biomarkers and microdosing for more complex studies.”
With the extra capacity in London and the planned facility in Hyderabad, “we will be better able to provide an integrated Phase I research solution that facilitates robust decision making early”, Caffrey added.
