Quintiles has announced that its central laboratory in Mumbai, India has been certified by the College of American Pathologists (CAP).
In order to gain the accreditation, the site, which has been running tests for local trials for the past year, underwent a site inspection to check compliance with international regulations.
Tom Wollman, senior vice president of the company's Global Central Laboratories said that the certification means that Quintiles Central Laboratory Services now has the largest wholly owned CAP-accredited laboratory network in the world, with a network spanning the US, Europe, South Africa, China, India and Singapore.
Recently, AbCRO, a US-owned but Bulgaria-based contract research organisation (CRO) has opened two offices in Russia, one in St. Petersburg and one in Moscow.
The motivation behind the expansion was Russia's vast potential as a clinical market, along with the fact that it had been receiving interest from customers in the country, one of whom it is now already working with.
Expansion plans in this region will not rest here, however, with the firm indicating its ambitious goal to grow the company - which currently employs 125 staff - four-fold over the next three to five years.
Last July, the firm already opened a new office in Warsaw, Poland, adding to the four offices that the growing CRO already had in Eastern Europe, in Bucharest, Romania; Zagreb, Croatia; and Belgrade, Serbia.
Meanwhile, Japan's ClioScience, a drug discovery venture firm, has linked up with a Chinese CRO that specialises in regulatory applications, called China Gate.
ClioScience is looking to tap into China's clinical trials market, which is tipped to become highly lucrative in the coming years. The firm also plans to expand its consulting business in the country.
In other news, Indian CRO Micro Therapeutic Research Labs has launched a new clinical data management (CDM) service, to further capitalise on what is a $120m opportunity in the Indian clinical research market.
In addition, Micro Therapeutic said that its bioavailability/bioequivalence facility has recently also been approved by the Drug Controller General of India and the company also revealed plans to launch stem cell and nanotech research in 2009.
