Quintiles teams with SCPMG to boost recruitment in US
SCPMG, which is part of healthcare group Kaiser Permanente, the US’ largest not-for-profit health plan, operates 11 medical centres and has 3.2m patient members in the state.
The accord, as Quintiles’ global head of site management, Paul Evans, told Outsourcing-pharma, is part of Quintiles “Prime Site” partnering model which already covers sites in Washington DC, South Africa and the UK.
“At our prime sites we consistently see better performance in terms of number of patients enrolled and speed of enrolment. In 2009 our Queen Mary College Prime Site in London enrolled 10% of the total number of patients UK.”
Evans went on to explain that the approach helps Quintiles “harmonize operational processes, drive efficiencies in start-up and build better relationships with site staff, which, in turn, supports patient recruitment.”
And, going forward, Evans confirmed that the contract research organization (CRO) plans to establish more prime sites and is “moving to include emerging markets in Asia, Latin America and Central & Eastern Europe in the program.”
The importance of the partnering approach to Quintiles was also highlighted by head of the company’s prime sites programme, Adam Chasse, in a press statement accompanying the SCPMG accord.
“Quintiles undertakes more clinical research than any other organization [and]…It is therefore critical that we develop alliances with healthcare providers that share our focus on developing new and better medicines while keeping patient care at the forefront.
“Kaiser Permanente’s rich background in clinical, epidemiologic and translational research is a natural fit with Quintiles’ core capabilities.”
