Veeda unveils bio-analytical lab
Veeda Clinical Research has opened a state-of-the-art bio-analytical laboratory at Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The new facility has been designed using good laboratory practice (GLP) and good manufacturing practice (GMP) requirements. This lab will be capable of housing up to 26 LC/MS/MS machines, and will be empowered with NuGenesis by Waters, along with Watson LIMS by Thermo Scientific, which is already in use. The new lab is equipped with dedicated areas such as high-end sample processing, light sensitive area, special care area where controlled conditions can be maintained for molecule specific requirements.

Veeda has plans to expand the existing clinical facility at Ahmedabad across two phases, which would see the bed capacity in Ahmedabad increase to 200. The first phase work is set to commence in October 2010, and will be ready by December 2010.


Ecron Acunova opens development center
Ecron Acunova, one of the leading CROs in India, launched its Functional Services Center in Bangalore. This development center is part of the growth plans of the company in the area of medical and pharmacovigilance services. The launch will broaden Ecron Acunova’s offering in drug safety services.

The center will employ 60 people initially, and will scale upto 200 people over the next two years. The center will focus on providing pharmacovigilance, drug safety and clinical development programs like protocol development, clinical study reports, narrative writing, clinical quality control services and post marketing surveillance.

Speaking on the occasion, DA Prasanna, chairman & managing director, Ecron Acunova, said, “The launch of the new center will accelerate growth of the company in this emerging area of safety and pharmacovigilance services. Our dedicated team of medical professionals will help clients in developing risk assessment and safety management  programs.”

Quintiles opens global IT facility
Quintiles, a biopharmaceutical services company, has officially opened its new Global Information Technology (IT) Service Operations Center in Bangalore. The new center provides intelligent monitoring, control and triage of system events across Quintiles’ technology cloud – its shared, managed and secure computing environment. The center underpins clinical research and commercialization operations for many globally leading biopharmaceutical organizations.

The center at the Quintiles Bangalore campus in India, was opened in the presence of Ashok Kumar, principal secretary-IT, Government of Karnataka; Dr Ferzaan Engineer, CEO, Quintiles India; and Naz Haji, senior vice president, Quintiles IT.

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Max Neeman starts phase IV trial
A global pharmaceutical company has initiated a trial to evaluate the impact of insulin guidelines developed by the Indian National Consensus group in collaboration with Max Neeman, a leading contract research organization. The goal is to provide simple management of type 2 diabetes patient dependent on insulin. The study will bring out a comparison between the routine clinical practice and the therapy decided as per the insulin guidelines. This large phase IV study encompasses over 1,200 sites and aims to enroll over 25,000 type 2 diabetics.

TCG, CarnaBio tie up for drug discovery
TCG Lifesciences, India and Carna Biosciences, Japan have entered into a strategic alliance to collaborate and provide jointly, high-end drug discovery services focusing on kinase targets, to global pharma and biotech companies. The companies expect to offer seamless services through the drug discovery and development value chain, in selected therapeutic areas which target on kinases.

SIRO Clinpharm launches On Trak
SIRO Clinpharm, a leading global contract research organization (CRO) based in Mumbai, has launched On Trak, its clinical trial management system. On Trak is part of a larger suite of Oracle Life Sciences applications consisting Adverse Events Reporting System (AERS), Oracle Clinical (OC), Remote Data Capture (RDC) and Thesaurus Management System (TMS) that went live earlier.