A new clinical research facility has opened at Queen Mary, University of London with support from Quintiles, which established the first of its international network of Prime Sites at the university in 2007.
The US-based biopharmaceutical services company is one of six donors to the facility, and its investment cements a presence in the UK that includes European headquarters in Bracknell, a Phase I clinical research facility at Guy’s Hospital in London and a laboratory and office facility in Edinburgh.
Prime Sites are large clinical institutions that work with Quintiles to improve the local infrastructure for clinical trials, driving productivity and excellence in the field. Quintiles provides dedicated resources to the clinical research facility at Queen Mary to optimise patient recruitment and accelerate study outcomes.
Consistent delivery
Since 2008, the Prime Site has consistently delivered a significant proportion of the patients recruited in the UK, with enrollment numbers ahead of other sites around the world, Quintiles noted.
To date in 2011, the Queen Mary site has recruited more than 10% of UK patients enrolled in Quintiles studies, it added. Investigators at the site work on at least 20 studies at any one time, across multiple therapeutic areas and with “best in class” start-up times.
“In the New Health, there is significant pressure to speed the drug development process in order to develop treatments that enable people to live healthier lives,” commented Lindy Jones, Quintiles’ global head of integrated site services.
Working with the team at Queen Mary will “further enhance our ability to recruit patients and investigators who are critical to an efficient and effective drug development process”, Jones added.
Mark Caulfield, director of the William Harvey Research Institute and of the National Institute for Health Research Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit at Queen Mary, said the new facility would ease collaboration between medical and clinical research professionals and academics across a range of protocols and therapeutic areas.
Quintiles completed an expansion of its Phase I facility in Guy’s Hospital Tower in March 2010. The company opened its central laboratory and office facility in Edinburgh, Scotland during 2010.
Other Quintiles Prime Sites are located in the US, South Korea, Malaysia and South Africa.
Temas acquisition
Testifying to its broader remit in the New Health landscape it defined in a white paper early last year, when Quintiles announced a new positioning and brand identity, the company has also agreed to acquire Temas, described as “one of the most important companies in Italy for regulatory and market access services”.
No financial terms were disclosed. The acquisition by Quintiles Commercial Italia s.r.l. was placed in the context of European health reforms that oblige biopharmaceutical companies to demonstrate product value to a wider range of stakeholders if they are to get to market effectively.
“By integrating the unique regulatory and market access know-how and the reputation of Temas, Quintiles will strengthen its role as a strategic ally that can propose and implement 360° solutions for biopharmaceutical companies,” it stated.
While these companies have the knowledge and experience to address regulatory approval requirements for new drugs in different geographies, there is less clarity around addressing the priorities of local healthcare providers and payers – an increasingly vital component of the market access equation, Quintiles noted.
The company has “the expertise to help biopharma both identify what health outcomes data are needed by these stakeholders and the experience in later phase and outcomes based clinical research to help deliver it”, Quintiles said.
