Growing CRO eyes further expansion

02-Aug-2016 - Last updated on 03-Aug-2016 at 15:37 GMT

Venn Life Sciences is a European CRO providing drug development, clinical trial management and resourcing solutions to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and academic organisations. (Image: iStock/RomoloTavani)

With a new contract signed worth €2.8m ($3.13m), the growing contract research organization (CRO), Venn Life Sciences, is eyeing future expansion.

According to Venn Life Sciences, the new contract is with a “European Biotechnology client,” and involves a Ph II clinical trial to evaluate Immunotherapeutic treatments for Multiple Sclerosis. The trial will include patients across six countries in Europe and is set to begin in October 2016.

A growing CRO

Much of the company’s growth has been facilitated by acquisitions as well as organic growth, which Tony Richardson, CEO of Venn Life Sciences Holdings, told us has allowed Venn to build “a truly pan-European footprint.”

“Our focus on Europe has really helped and we are focusing on study sizes and regions where we can execute to a high level,” he added. Growth has also been driven by repeat business and demand in the rare disease space.

In the next five years, Richardson said he expects to see Venn competing for and securing larger contracts as the company continues to grow its capabilities.

“This will see us extending our business into the USA and will also see the further development of areas of specialism that will make Venn a higher value business,” he said. “We are also developing strategies to position us in the clinical information technology arena.”

Vendor qualification

Venn also announced that its Interactive Response Technology (“IRT”) department has successfully qualified as a service provider to a top ten pharmaceutical client and has been awarded an initial project with thirty sites in China.

“Our Interactive Response Technology department is home to our in in-house solution developed through the successful collaboration of our statistician, logistics and IT experts,” said Richardson.

“Since 1999, our IRT has been used by our sponsors to centralize the randomization of patients for their national and international Phase I to IV clinical trials, in addition to the logistics management of their studies,” he added, explaining that the team focuses solely on delivering IRT services.

The IRT system is regulatory compliant (21CRF part 11 – EMA & FDA inspected) and is developed and validated with a GAMP 5 approach.

According to the company, the vendor qualification is a “significant milestone” for the IRT division.