Bayer Clinical Units to be Transferred to Outsourcing Partner CRS
The long-term strategic alliance will see Bayer Healthcare transferring its clinical pharmacology capability over to Andernach, Germany-based contract research organization (CRO) Clinical Research Services (CRS) who will conduct early phase clinical trials in the fields of cardiovascular diseases and gynaecology.
“In the past, there was a trend to outsource the entire clinical development (phase I-III) to globally acting CROs,” Senior VP of Business Development at CRS, Dr. David Surjo, told Outsourcing-Pharma.com.
“Today, there might be a trend to look for much more specialised partners for early phases, who are able to offer in-house CPU capacity combined with the experience and access to handle complex trials dealing with special study populations.”
The details of the partnership will see CRS take charge of Bayer HealthCare's German clinical pharmacology units in Berlin and Wuppertal and integrate them into CRS's network of research units.
The two units will be run as wholly-owned subsidiaries of CRS with both study volumes and staff – 12 positions in Berlin, 11 in Wuppertal – being assigned to these new companies.
According to Surjo, this strategic alliance is one example of a big pharma big company focusing on its “core competencies in the area of drug discovery and complementing them with expertise from expert partners,” in this example, the area of early clinical development.
The deal will widen CRS’s capabilities in the two therapeutic areas, and during the partnership the adopted units will be used exclusively to carry out trials for Bayer. However, Surjo said: “After finalisation of the transition, CRS will offer these highly specialized services also to other clients.”
This is not the first time CRS has worked with Bayer, he added, but rather this “partnership reflects the acknowledgment of the expertise and quality provided by CRS and offers further opportunities” in the future.
