While the need to effectively manage clinical samples is nothing new, the increasing trend to conduct trials at a number of sites simultaneous has made the problem of sample collection and analysis more complex.
The growth of biologics and personalized medicine is likely to intensify demand for this type of service given that such drugs often induce subtle effects that could easily be lost through degradation if transport of the sample to the laboratory is delayed.
The new collaboration, which will operate from Gentris’ laboratory in Morrisville, North Carolina, is designed to tackle this problem by combining key aspects of the firms’ respective contract trial supply and pharmacogenomic analysis offerings.
The facility has capacity to store up to 57,600 2ml samples, a 21 CFR 11 compliant lab information management (LIMS) system and a variety of specialist freezer units that are capable of storing everything from DNA and RNA samples to cells harvest during trials.
Gentris said the deal allows “Clinical Logistics to offer specimen storage services for clinical trials which require short, medium or long term storage,” adding that they “can be shipped in aggregates to the bioanalytical laboratory for analysis.
Gentris explained that CL’s role in the collaboration will be to coordinate sample shipment, particularly for time sensitive samples which will be shipped directly to the lab for analysis.