North Carolina, US-headquartered PPD has teamed with Commonwealth Biomedical Research Kentucky, CNS Network in LA and Lovelace Scientific Resources, which has units in Texas and Florida.
The contract research organisation (CROs) said its new partners have a wide range of expertise in conducting trials in the fields of cardiovascular, metabolic, respiratory, central nervous system and hepatic diseases.
Cindy Doerflr, VP of PPD’s 300-bed Phase I unit, suggested that, in addition to expertise in various growing therapeutic markets, the new network will provide clients with more options for early-phase development.
“By choosing to build relationships with sites that have demonstrated superior quality and the ability to recruit for various patient populations, we provide our clients a very flexible model for patient enrolment, site location and therapeutic expertise.”
The firm also suggested that its “proof-of-concept” study would benefit from the new network, particularly for trials of biologics and, in time, biosimilar compounds.
The network follows just a few weeks after PPD boosted its laboratory analysis offering in North America with a new good manufacturing practices (GMP) accredited unit in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
Global Phase I plans
PPD also unveiled plans to use the Phase I network approach in other key clinical trials markets like central and eastern European (CEE) and Asia-Pacific in response to growing demand.P
This idea fits with recent analysis by Jeffries and Co which suggested the global market for Phase I trial, expected to be worth around $2.3bn this year, will grow at a rate of around six per cent a year through to 2015.