Chiltern Announces Early Phase Partnership With Tayside Academic Health Sciences Centre

LONDON, June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Chiltern International Limited (Chiltern), a global contract research organization, announced its latest collaboration with Tayside Academic Health Sciences Centre (TAHSC), a joint venture between UK's NHS Tayside and the University of Dundee. In this collaboration, Chiltern will partner with TAHSC to conduct and support Proof of Concept and Translational Medicine studies.

Chiltern will draw upon many parts of TAHSC, including the Clinical Research Centre (CRC) which is located on the same University Medical School and hospital campus as Chiltern Early Phase and NHS Tayside's Clinical Imaging and Interventional Centre (CIIC). The CRC is the hub for clinical trial activity with links to additional satellite units in Tayside. Chiltern and the CRC will focus on Proof of Concept studies in areas such as diabetes, COPD, cardiovascular disease, neurological conditions and Hepatitis C.

The CIIC houses a sophisticated 3T MRI scanner and a PET/CT scanner. A unique feature of the suite is an operating room situated between the MRI and PET/CT scanners, allowing ready access to these important tools before, during and after surgery. Ease of access to state of the art diagnostic equipment and expertise, the availability of Key Opinion Leaders in many disease areas as well as access to study subjects interested and available to participate in these studies, make this an ideal setting for performance and delivery of the highest caliber.

Glenn Kerkof, Chiltern CEO, stated, "This new partnership demonstrates Chiltern's commitment to deliver high quality POC studies to our clients and adding value to their drug development processes by combining our extensive experience with world class academic-based research and expertise. We are proud of this new collaboration and confident that the world class Key Opinion Leaders in TAHSC will augment our expertise in our early phase business."  

Jill Belch, Professor, Tayside Research and Development Director, commented, "Supporting the local research community and building strong working relationships with industrial partners are key objectives for TAHSC. This agreement will allow potential access to new drugs for our patients in Tayside and allow our researchers to participate in a larger range of cutting edge clinical studies."  

About Chiltern

Chiltern has a dedicated forty-two bed clinical pharmacology unit located in Ninewells Hospital and Medical School. Established in 1982, Chiltern has performed more than 700 clinical pharmacology studies in all routes of administration across major therapeutic areas. With more than 28 years of experience, Chiltern has robust processes in place and its hospital-based location provides a full suite of safety monitoring with 24/7 access to hospital-based crash team and hospital specialists for therapeutic area expertise and patient recruitment. Chiltern offers an extensive database of healthy volunteers and other patient populations. For more information: www.chiltern.com.

About TAHSC

The Scottish Academic Health Science Collaboration was launched in June 2009 and comprises four nodes based around NHS and University collaborations in Tayside, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh. The collaborative venture between NHS Tayside and the University of Dundee - TAHSC was launched in January 2010 to boost clinical research activity within Tayside. TAHSC combines excellence in academia, clinical service delivery, research management and education. Together NHS Tayside and the University of Dundee employ 16,000 staff and have an annual turnover of over  1 billion pounds Sterling. There is a wide range of joint expertise in research into cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, neuroscience, photobiology/dermatology, and infection, inflammation and immunity. For more information: www.tahsc.org.uk.

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SOURCE Chiltern International