Quintiles partners with the University of Pretoria

Quintiles, the only fully integrated biopharmaceutical services company offering clinical, commercial, consulting and capital solutions worldwide, today announced a strategic alliance agreement with the University of Pretoria as part of its industry unique Prime Site program, an initiative to accelerate the development of new and more effective medicines. The University of Pretoria is the third location in the Quintiles Prime Site program which already includes Queen Mary's College in London and the Washington Hospital Center in Washington DC.

"Prime Sites are large clinical institutions that collaborate with Quintiles to enhance their infrastructure for conducting clinical trials." Explained Dr Christopher Cabell, Head of Global Access to Patients. "The University of Pretoria was selected because of its experience in conducting clinical research, its access to substantial patient populations and clinical expertise all across multiple therapeutic areas. Through this new partnership Quintiles will be able to significantly improve its ability to access patients and investigators who are critical to facilitating the increasingly complex therapies under development."

Gillian Corken, Quintiles, Africa, said: "The addition of University of Pretoria to the Prime Site program is a key milestone for Quintiles and also for us in South Africa as it recognizes the quality of our clinical research. Taking some key learnings from both Queen Mary's College and the Washington Hospital Center, and with the enthusiasm and vision for this unprecedented model that our University of Pretoria partners have shown, we have confidence in being able to accelerate the initiation of this site. By consolidating research in areas of high patient and investigator density we can dramatically improve efficiencies particularly in feasibility and recruitment."

Professor Robin Crewe, University of Pretoria, said: "We take enormous pride in being recognized nationally and internationally as an outstanding institution for research and clinical service and we have committed significant management resource to ensuring that we can fully realize the potential of this alliance. By becoming part of Quintiles' Prime Site program we will not only benefit from greater efficiencies in monitoring and contracting, but we will also be able to provide pools of patients for Quintiles' entire pipeline of high-quality studies. Moreover, we regard this as an outstanding opportunity for elevating the profile of our clinical research work to new audiences."

The Prime Site program is already yielding impressive results in its established locations at Queen Mary's College in London, UK and the Washington Hospital Centre in Washington, USA. Across both current Prime Site locations, seven new studies have begun in 2009 to date with a further six already scheduled for later in the year. Accordingly, Quintiles has been testing twenty eight different drugs across both sites in 2009, and shall look to continue to build on these successes at the University of Pretoria site. Key to the success of the program so far is Quintiles efforts to harmonize operational processes, drive efficiencies in start-up and build better relationships with site staff, which, in turn, supports patient recruitment.

Quintiles strategic vision is to set up numerous Prime Sites around the world, building on the success that it has already seen, and moving to include emerging markets in Asia, Latin America and Central & Eastern Europe in the program.

The announcement of this agreement with the University of Pretoria comes after the opening of a Quintiles office in Ghana to improve efficiency and expand capacity to monitor the growing number of clinical studies being conducted in Western Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly for diseases such as Malaria, HIV and Tuberculosis.

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