Author: Peter Mansell

Private equity interest in the booming contract research sector continues to build, as Inclinix, an enrolment contract research organisation (CRO) based in Wilmington, US, announced it has closed $10 million in expansion funding from Frontier Capital.

Contract research organisations (CROs) in the Asia Pacific region generated estimated revenues of $1.2 billion from Phase I to IV clinical trials in 2006, according to new research from Frost & Sullivan. CRO markets in these countries could reach $2 billion in 2010, the analysts believe.

Earlier assessment in the drug development process and mandatory post-marketing surveillance should be part of a more determined regulatory push to root out potential cardiovascular safety problems in drugs geared mainly to non-cardiovascular indications, says a US authority in the field.

Researchers in Switzerland are adamant that a clinical trial registry envisaged by the federal government must be completely compatible with other international registries and not a “specifically Swiss solution”, says Interpharma, the national association for research-based pharmaceutical companies.

An unexpected survival benefit in a head-to-head comparison of GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) asthma blockbuster Seretide/Advair (salmeterol/fluticasone propionate) and Boehringer Ingelheim’s Spiriva (tiotropium bromide) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has taken some of the sting out of the non-approvable letter received by GSK from the US FDA last August for the higher-dose version of the Advair Diskus inhaler in COPD.