Quintiles to set up clinical trial unit in Hyderabad

US-based Quintiles Transnational Corporation, a pharmaceutical services provider, has entered into a partnership with Apollo Hospitals group to open a Phase I clinical trial unit in Hyderabad. The unit will allow customers additional options to complete integrated Phase I programmes across multiple geographies at this stage in medical research.

“Phase I development in both healthy volunteers and patients is at the forefront of our quest for new and better medicines. Phase I can help expedite the development process and ensure that only those compounds with most promise are further evaluated,” Eddie Caffrey, senior V-P, Quintiles Global Phase I, stated in a release here.

Scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2010, the unit will evaluate compounds developed both in India and in other countries. Initially, it will have around 50 beds, with plans to expand this number to 100. Hyderabad will be the fifth Quintiles Phase I facility, joining units in London, Kansas, and Lulea and Uppsala in Sweden. Hyderabad is the fourth Quintiles location in India. The company has offices in Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Bangalore offering clinical research, central laboratory, data management and ECG services.

Senior managers from Quintiles’ Phase I unit at Guys Hospital, London, will set up operations in Hyderabad and mentor the management team here. Quintiles’ London personnel will also help train staff for the India unit, which will be located on Apollo’s Hyderabad hospital campus.