Quintiles makes donation to support innovative cancer study

Quintiles is making a contribution of funding to support the execution of an innovative new breast cancer trial that aims to deliver results faster and more cost-effectively.

The contract research organisation is providing $2.6 million (1.6 million pounds) over four years to fund I-SPY 2, a unique adaptive clinical trial that uses biomarkers from individuals' tumours to screen multiple investigational therapies simultaneously.

It is thought that this method will allow evaluators to measure the efficacy of drugs more quickly, allowing therapies to be developed at twice the speed, while cutting costs by as much as 80 percent.

Quintiles is joining organisations such as the Safeway Foundation and QuantumLeap Healthcare Collaborative in supporting the trial, as well as a number of pharmaceutical companies.

Dennis Gillings, Quintiles' chairman and chief executive officer, said: "Multi-party collaboration, adaptive trial design, biomarker use and point-of-care data access are major steps in the right direction. Quintiles is proud to be part of this revolutionary effort."

Last month, the firm was chosen as a preferred provider of clinical development services for a consortium of 14 leading product development partnerships.