PPD expands consulting services into four new areas
The new practices include biosimilars, adaptive trial design, China regulatory strategy and cardiovascular outcomes studies, and are aimed at strengthening PPD’s ability to “help clients meet unique product development challenges across multiple disciplines.”
Christine Dingivan, managing director and CMO of PPD, explained why the company felt comfortable branching out in these new directions.
“PPD has a strong team of physicians, regulatory experts, scientists and biostatisticians with extensive experience in creating and implementing product development plans from preclinical through post-approval on global and local levels,” she said.
Quickly evolving
PPD claims the nascent biosimilar sector is evolving quickly, and as a result it is perfectly poised to offer its consulting services to Biopharma companies seeking appropriate endpoints, or more efficient clinical trial designs, as well as helping them develop more effective regulatory strategies.
The US firm said its biostatistics and therapeutic area experts were also capable of assisting in adaptive trial design - particularly areas such as approach design which it claims can help decrease cycle times and lower development costs.
By introducing the four new practice areas, PPD said it now boasts expertise in a range of product development issues in many major therapeutic areas, including oncology, cardiovascular disease and critical care.
Increased revenue
News of the company’s decision to branch out into new areas comes soon after it posted encouraging financial results for Q1 2011.
Despite a higher than expected number of project cancellations and postponements, the Wilmington-based CRO recorded a net revenue of $383.2m (€268m), representing a 10.5 per cent increase on the same period in 2010.
“We were pleased to deliver solid gross and net authorisations in the first quarter of 2011, enhancing the future outlook of PPD,” said CEO David Grange.
