MDS Pharma Services posted an 18 per cent drop in revenue in its Q2 results, which also contained details of restructuring that will affect 180 people and cost $4m (€2.8m).
US contractor Velesco Pharmaceutical Services has leased a new clinical trial materials manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, extending its range of preclinical and early trial development services.
US genomic services specialist Cogenics has launched a new DMET analysis service that it believes will improve patient genotyping during clinical trials, helping drug industry sponsors target the development of new products and reduce costs.
IT solutions firm Merge Healthcare has won the race to buy eClinical specialist etrials, beating previous suitor Bio-Imaging Technologies whose takeover bid collapsed on Monday.
Canadian CRO MDS Pharma Services (MDS) is to sell its Phase II-IV trial business to US counterpart INC Research for $50m (€35m) and focus on providing discovery and early clinical development services.
Power outages cost India $9.2bn (€6.5bn) in 2008, according to a report, with the disruptions causing direct losses in numerous sectors, including pharma and biotech.
US Patient recruitment specialist BBK Worldwide has set up a unit in Osaka, Japan to improve enrolment rates for studies in the country and help local pharma and biotech firms cut costs.
US CRO Ockham Development group will start providing customers with data capture and analysis solutions developed by etrials under a new, five year licensing agreement.
Biotechs use smaller CROs as much as larger service providers and regard patient recruitment speed as by far the most important characteristic, according to a report.
UK CRO Quotient Bioresearch has bought a clinical research facility in Edinburgh, Scotland, which in conjunction with an existing unit in Nottingham, England will serve as a base for its new Quotient Clinical unit.
Piramal Healthcare’s new clinical trial manufacturing, packaging and distribution centre in Northumberland, UK will help pharma industry customers to “build cost saving at an early stage,” according to European strategic manager Martin Hunt.
The increasingly global clinical trial sector demands more effective ethical and regulatory scrutiny according to a study published in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
eClinical provider Datatrak has posted flat revenues in Q1 but its operating loss was badly affected by the severance packages of two executive officers.
CRO Encorium has unveiled plans to sell both its US business and its Finnish subsidiary Encorium Oy just weeks after posting a gloomy set of Q1 financials dominated by a 15 per cent drop in net revenues.
Definitive FDA guidance on adaptive trials cannot come soon enough for the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors, according to Perceptive Informatics (PI).
CRO Eurotrials has brought in US business consultant AmeriStart to publicise and sell its trial services to pharmaceutical and biotech firms in North America.
Perceptive Informatics has expanded its offering for trials involving Alzheimer's disease with a new medical imaging method, which it claims produces higher quality, reproducible and regulatory compliant assessments.
US contract research organisation (CRO) Encorium has reported $2m in new and repeat business deals on the same day it posted gloomy Q4 figures and cited the "drop in demand" refrain heard across the trial sector.
Clinical trial software provider Phase Forward posted strong Q1 financial results, with CRO related revenues jumping by 52 per cent despite the difficulties facing companies in the sector.
Icon’s net new business fell by 28 per cent in Q1 but the overall picture was better, with operating profits rising by 25 per cent and a US acquisition expanding its Phase I capacity.
19 out of 21 pharmaceutical companies surveyed by Cutting Edge Information ranked a contract research organisation’s ability to hit trial deadlines as either “extremely important” or very “important,” making it the top quality identified by respondents.
Parexel posted a doubling in cancellations in Q3 of its fiscal year, with profits remaining flat as an eight per cent boost in service revenue was offset by higher operating expenses.
German CRO Clinicalprojects International (CPI) will begin providing its customers with the TrialMaster EDC solution though a deal with developer OmniComm.
Coast IRB has decided to close after a probe by US Government Accountability Office (GAO) and subsequent FDA warning letter resulted in the loss of “several key customers”.
US firm Kendle is the latest CRO to revise its forecast and blame “unprecedented biopharmaceutical industry conditions,” which are fast becoming an industry catchphrase, for its Q1 woes.
Epistem claims its “plucked hair biomarker model” provides drugmakers with minimally invasive way monitoring epithelial response to cancer candidates that can significantly reduce development times.
Following calls for increased transparency PhRMA has published its new clinical trial principles, which contain revisions relating to registration, authors and sponsor disclosure.
Indian CRO Siro ClinPharm is teaming up with New Jersey based pharma services firm Advanced Clinical Trial Solutions (ACT) to strengthen its position in the US cancer trial sector.
US clinical trials firm ChemDiv has bought Russian CRO Prudentas, boosting its presence in the country at a time when the treatment naïve populations in Eastern Europe are increasingly catching the eye of the global pharma and biotech industries.
Finding appropriate subjects in the booming trials market is a major stumbling block for drug firms and CROs, according to a new study by US market analysts Cutting Edge Information
From June onwards drug firms and CROs conducting trials in India are required to record full details of the research, including the funding source, on the ICMR’s Clinical Trials Registry India website.
Companies seeking research services in India and China will now be able to use a single contact following an alliance between GVK BIO and Excel, which the companies claim is the first to span the two nations.
Germany’s XClinical says 2008 was a successful year with a 20 per cent hike in revenues for its electronic data capture (EDC) and clinical data/trial management (CDM/CTM) software.
Almac claims it can bring drugs to trial faster using an automated approach to compliance that cuts the time taken to validate manufacturing processes by several months.
Cincinnati, US site management organisation (SMO) Radiant Research says that growing industry demand for trials outside the US is the key motivation for the link up with India’s Spectrum Clinical Research.
The past few days have seen a string of announcements from contract research organisations (CROs) which indicate that their appetite for international expansion and development remains unsated.
US company CardioNet, which specialises in mobile cardiac monitoring devices, has made a foray into the contract research sector with a $14m offer to acquire cardiovascular research firm Biotel.
Pfizer has become the first drugmaker to win accreditation for protecting the human rights of subjects enrolled into early-stage clinical trials under a scheme operated by the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP).
Eli Lilly’s pursuit of outsourcing deals continues unabated with the pharma major entering into a cardiovascular R&D collaboration with Zydus Cadila that has been described as a “new paradigm for global alliances”.
UK CRO Richmond Pharmacology has unveiled a new data management offering for the drug industry that it claims will help trial sponsors cut costs, save time and help guarantee data integrity.
eClinical company etrials saw losses increase in the fourth quarter of 2008, but pointed to a healthy increase in orders as evidence of the underlying strength of the business.
PPD says it is unlikely to receive a $25m (€20m) milestone for US approval of Takeda’s diabetes drug alogliptin this year after the FDA said that cardio vascular (CV) safety data filed as part of the NDA are insufficient.
Tigermed is continuing with its plan of partnering to become the top Chinese CRO through an alliance with MacroStat to improve its range of statistical services, further broadening its business.
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