This is the second US location for Quintiles' Global Data Management division, which already has an office in Missouri, and the move aims to "build additional capacity for customers seeking services provided by US-based staff," said the firm.
Many contract research organisations (CROs) have been increasingly off-shoring a lot of their business process and data management functions to low-cost locations such as India, Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe, in order to offer their clients lower-cost options for clinical trials, which have been wildly escalating.
Quintiles itself now has data management centres in India, South Africa, Japan and Europe, with over three quarters of its data management staff operating from these locations, providing services for clinical trials carried out throughout the globe.
However, pharma firms consider clinical data as highly sensitive, as it pertains to the safety and efficacy of new drugs and is used to support regulatory submissions for marketing approval, and although large CROs such as Quintiles maintain high quality controls at all of their global locations, pharma firms are still becoming increasingly conscious of how and where their data is handled, and many now prefer the data management for their clinical trials to be carried out on US soil.
With the announced US expansion, Quintiles has signalled a clear desire to cater for these customers.
"The Williamston centre is needed to meet growing demand by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for Quintiles' global data management services in the US," said a company statement.
"The Williamston office will improve our ability to adjust to the changing needs of our global customers, especially those who want services provided in the US," added Paula Brown Stafford, executive vice president, Quintiles Global Data Management.
The new US centre will focus on entering data from clinical trials into secure databases for expert review and analysis.
The 10,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2006, and Quintiles said it hopes to have 20 employees trained and entering data by the end of the year.
Additional jobs will be added as demand increases, up to the centre's maximum capacity of 70 employees, said the firm.