Quotient Clinical and Bend Research Announce Collaboration to Accelerate Advancement of New Medicines

BEND, Ore. and NOTTINGHAM, England, Nov. 10, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Bend Research Inc. (www.bendres.com), a leading independent drug-formulation development and manufacturing company, and Quotient Clinical, a business unit of Quotient Bioresearch ("Quotient," www.quotientbioresearch.com), a leading developer of compounds through clinical trials, announced today a nonexclusive collaboration that can speed the advance of compounds to clinical trials and expand options for drug delivery.

The collaboration combines Bend Research's advanced drug formulation capabilities and Quotient's clinical-trial design service, RapidFACT™. The result is a clinical-trial program that will allow clients to screen and select optimized formulations rapidly during human testing. For example, optimum bioavailability-enhancing formulations relying on amorphous and nanocrystalline dispersions can be quickly identified using the highly flexible clinical trial designs pioneered by Quotient.

"This collaboration takes advantage of the proven strengths of our two companies," said Bend Research President and CEO Rod Ray. "The versatility of designing and implementing clinical trials using RapidFACT provides our clients with a game-changing advantage in advancing their compounds."

Mark Egerton, Managing Director of Quotient Clinical, agreed on the value of the collaboration. "Poorly soluble compounds are becoming ever more prevalent in the industry's pipeline, and we have many customers who require formulation help to advance such problematic compounds. Access to Bend Research's leading formulation expertise through this collaboration will provide our customers with reliable, rapid and efficient drug formulation platforms," he said.

Accessing Bend Research formulations at Quotient's clinical research site means that clinical studies can happen much more quickly than was previously possible. One client has already taken advantage of the collaboration with the successful transfer of a Bend Research formulation to Quotient's cGMP manufacturing facility in Nottingham, U.K.

Ray and Egerton will be available for discussions at the upcoming American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) in November in New Orleans.

About Quotient Clinical

Quotient Clinical is a leading provider of early clinical development services. With more than 20 years experience, Quotient Clinical offers a uniquely streamlined process, reducing the time from First in Human to Proof of Concept and integrating flexible drug product manufacture into clinical trials. Quotient Clinical's principal focus is to provide a unique and comprehensive range of high-quality early-development services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers worldwide.

RapidFACT (Rapid Formulation development And Clinical Testing) represents a new paradigm for drug product optimization. It exploits Quotient's integrated formulation development, drug product manufacture, and clinical-testing platform. Candidate formulations can be rapidly screened, selected, and validated on the basis of their performance in man – dramatically improving the chances of identifying a drug product that can achieve the target product profile.

Quotient Bioresearch is a leading provider of early-stage and specialist drug development services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical-device clients worldwide. The company offers a wide range of drug development services through its three key focus areas: Chemistry and Metabolism, Bioanalytical Sciences and Clinical. Quotient has grown rapidly in the past 3 years, through a combination of acquisition-led and organic growth.

For more information about Quotient and its capabilities, please contact Sarah Evans at The Scott Partnership, 1 Whiteside, Station Road, Holmes Chapel, Cheshire, CW4 8AA, United Kingdom (telephone: +44 1477 539 539; fax: +44 1477 539 540; e-mail: [email protected]).

About Bend Research Inc.

For more than 30 years, Bend Research has worked with clients to create value by advancing new medicines and to solve their most difficult scientific and technical problems. This success is based on the company's ability to develop, advance, and commercialize pharmaceutical technologies. The firm's innovative drug-delivery solutions grow from a solid base of scientific and engineering fundamental understanding.

Bend Research provides formulation and dosage-form support, assists in process development and optimization, manufactures clinical-trial quantities of drug candidates in its cGMP facility, and advances promising drug candidates from conception through commercialization.

Bend Research currently works with more than 50 pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients worldwide. The company has more than 180 employees based in four state-of-the-art facilities in Bend, Oregon, USA. For more information about Bend Research and its formulation and manufacturing capabilities, please contact Dana Settell via email at [email protected] or phone at 541-382-4100.

SOURCE Bend Research Inc.