The pharmaceutical industry’s growing demand for treatment naive populations has seen contract research organisations (CRO) enter various new markets in recent years, with Asia, South America and Central and Eastern Europe being the key beneficiaries.
This month alone US CRO Kendle has set up offices in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines while compatriot PRA bolstered its presence in Brazil.
In addition, the Russian trials sector has attracted a lot of attention most recently on June 2 when a Synergy Research Group report described it as a “potential superpower” in the market in years to come.
Africa too has benefited from the CRO sector’s expansion with, for example, patient recruitment specialist Synexus announcing plans to double its South African trial capacity in December.
In February, the European Union provided €3m ($4.15m) funding for a network to promote excellence in clinical trials through its European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) unit.
Important for patient recruitment
Quintiles did not respond to Outsourcing-pharma’s request for further information, however, in a press release issued by the firm Gillian Corken, its CEO in Africa, set out the sorts of studies the new office will oversee.
Corken said that: “Initially the focus will be on diseases such as malaria, TB and HIV,” such as the trial of a malaria vaccine that the firm recently began.
“However, we anticipate that as the infrastructure and economies in Africa develop… it will play an increasingly important role in recruiting patients for many other therapeutic areas, such as oncology and cardiovascular.
Quintiles’ Accra office is based in the grounds of the University of Ghana at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research.
In addition to managing its local trial activities, Quintiles office will provide training for new investigators across a range of therapeutic areas, as well as an education programme for clinical research associates (CRAs).
Ethical practices
Quintiles also stressed that, as with its other units worldwide, its Ghanian office will “strictly adhere to ethical principles articulated by international guidelines such as ICH, the Declaration of Helsinki, CIOMS and the Belmont Report.”
The firm’s emphasis on the ethics is perhaps unsurprising given some recent criticism of practices employed during trials in Africa, most notably Pfizer’s Nigerian Trovan study, and throughout the developing world as a whole.