Icon forays further into Eastern Europe
Research has forayed further into Eastern Europe with the opening
of three new offices there.
Prague, Czech Republic; Kiev, Ukraine; and Bucharest, Romania are the locations of the company's new facilities, which according to the firm, are located near leading teaching hospitals and national clinical research sites and provide access to investigators and patient groups. Alan Morgan, president of Icon clinical research, Europe, told Outsourcing-Pharma.com that prior to setting up shop in the new locations, Icon staff are already working on a number of clinical studies in these countries. "The increased need for clinical trial management in these countries has created a need for more permanent Icon presence," Morgan said. "Icon would only consider opening offices where we are already have the experience of running clinical trials and have suitably qualified and experienced staff to populate an office". All existing Icon field-based staff that have been working on local projects will move into the new offices, which each have the ability to accommodate 50 people. From there they will provide project management, clinical monitoring and regulatory submissions services. "The Central and Eastern European regions are emerging locales for clinical trials… and offer great opportunities and facilities for drug development," said Morgan. "The expansion of Icon's capabilities is supported by the availability of large homogenous patient populations (mainly treatment naïve), competitive approval timelines and an important network of highly qualified investigators," he said. Icon is one of a number of contract research organisations (CROs) who are spreading their roots further into this region of the world, chasing the promise that it holds. In a presentation last year, Dan McDonald, vice president of Strategic and product development for consultancy firm D. Anderson & Company described Central and Eastern Europe as a "hidden clinical trial gem." The eight-country area offers 20 per cent savings on study costs, 400m treatment naïve patients, most of whom are part of a centralised health system. "There have been over 1,500 new study registrations here in the past year, he said. Adding Russia and the Ukraine to the mix makes the region even more lucrative, with 200m treatment naïve patients - greater than in all 12 Western European countries combined - and a recruitment rate between two and ten times faster as well as a cash saving of up to 50 per cent compared to the west.
