A contract health-research organisation specialising in outcomes research has launched in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
St John’s-based Research Avenue is the first organisation of its kind in a province that has “made a tremendous investment in healthcare and medical research infrastructure over the past decade”, the new company says.
Research Avenue is offering research solutions for healthcare and life-science organisations that need to generate real-world evidence for product development, regulatory approval, market-access decisions and post-marketing drug surveillance.
The company claims expertise across a spectrum of health-research disciplines, encompassing interventional, observational and genomic research.
Industry demand
Dr Tyler Wish, president of Research Avenue, attributed the company’s genesis to a combination of “industry demand and outstanding local infrastructure”.
Health outcomes is a fast-growing segment of the contract research sector, estimated to be worth $4 billion by 2015, Research Avenue points out.
At the same time, it notes, innovative local infrastructure is encouraging growth in the provincial life-sciences sector.
EHR system
The Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information (NLCHI), for example, is “the most advanced electronic health records system in Canada” and a valuable asset for conducting real-world health economic and observational research, the company says.
Memorial University of Newfoundland in St John’s is expanding its Faculty of Medicine, which will include a state-of-the-art genomics research facility, the Craig L Dobbin Genetics Research Centre.
The Newfoundland founder population also offers unique genetic-research opportunities, including personalised-medicine applications, Research Avenue adds.
It is “one of the world’s few genetic isolate founder populations, and has been shown to have the greatest generalisability to Caucasian populations compared to all other founder populations”.
Developing partnerships
Housed within the Genesis Centre at Memorial University, Research Avenue is developing partnerships with Atlantic Canadian and national healthcare and life-science organisations.
