Synexus reaps rewards of greater recognition within the pharma industry

14 February 2008


14th February 2008

SYNEXUS REAPS REWARDS OF GREATER RECOGNITION WITHIN THE PHARMA INDUSTRY
- Clinical trials specialist reports unprecedented success -

In the final quarter of 2007, Synexus - the world’s largest multi-national company specialising in the recruitment and management of clinical trials – based in Chorley, Lancashire, won more than £20million business from some of the world’s major pharmaceutical companies.

Since September 2007, Synexus has been awarded contracts to recruit for and run 12 late-stage clinical trials across the world on behalf of companies including GSK, Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis and Reckitt Benckiser. The trials range in duration from just three months to over five years. More than 8,000 patients from the UK, India, South Africa and Eastern Europe will be randomised for studies investigating such conditions as: osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, sexual dysfunction, diabetes and insomnia (see notes for editors for full list of trials and pharmaceutical clients).

Synexus, which was taken private by Lyceum Capital in December last year for £20 million ($40million), has revolutionised the way late-stage clinical trials are carried out.  Traditionally, individual sites recruited four patients or less on an opportunistic basis which, with studies involving 20,000 plus patients, is enormously expensive and wholly impractical.

The benefit of the Synexus model is that it ensures the same high standard of Good Clinical Practice (GCP) at any Synexus site anywhere in the world and drastically reduces set-up and monitoring costs.

A large pharma company has stated that setting up one individual investigator costs on average $35,000 and that 60% of these investigators who sign up will recruit one or less patients to the study. These hundreds and sometimes thousands of investigators then have to be monitored regularly. Synexus has just one contract which can cover up to thirteen sites and the cost of monitoring a handful of sites, with thousands of patients, falls dramatically.

In one clinical trial the set-up and monitoring costs fell from over $18million to less than $5million.

Synexus is presently looking at an acquisition in the US, as well as opportunities to roll-out its hub-site model elsewhere.

Michael Fort, CEO of Synexus, says: “The last quarter has been very encouraging and we are delighted that big pharma is increasingly recognising the guarantee of quality as well as the huge cost savings that we offer. The global CROs are particularly attracted to the savings that can be made and passed on to their clients.

“We are well positioned to expand the number of our hub sites into many more countries.”