US-based contract research organisation (CRO) MDS Pharma Services has moved its central laboratory services in Singapore to a new, larger facility with twice the capacity for sample storage, processing and safety testing.

MDS Pharma has seen its sample volume double in Singapore over the last year, while it expects business to keep growing as companies step up research investment in the region. The CRO only recently opened an office in Tokyo, Japan, which it believes will open up opportunities in the wider Asia-Pacific region.

As president Davis Spaight pointed out, MDS Pharma was the first Western CRO to own a facility in China and the first clinical laboratory there to receive accreditation from the College of American Pathologists (CAP). The company’s Asia Pacific network includes global central laboratory facilities in Singapore and Beijing (China), discovery and preclinical operations in Taiwan, and monitoring offices for late-stage clinical trials in Beijing, Malaysia and Australia.

The Singapore central laboratory, which will now operate out of the Marsiling Industrial Park, has Level 1 accreditation from the US-based National Glycohemoglobin Standardization Program, enabling it to handle diabetes studies conducted according to strict international guidelines. It also has accreditation from the College of American Pathologists and recently passed its CAP inspection with zero deficiencies, MDS noted.

In addition to its central lab services, the Singapore facility is one of two Asia Pacific sites (the other being Beijing) through which MDS Pharma offers integrated centralised cardiac safety services to the whole of the region. Singapore is also one of eight Asian Global Clinical Development sites run by MDS Pharma that offer late-stage clinical trial monitoring.