Bangalore, Nov 12, 2009: Leading full service contract research organizations (CROs), India-headquartered Ecron Acunova and Japan's Tokyo CRO have entered into a strategic alliance to strengthen their services by providing sponsors with a global network. According to the companies, this alliance provides global life science companies access to India, Japan and European countries for clinical research.

Commenting on the development, Mr DA Prasanna, Founder of Ecron Acunova, said, “Japan is a key market and requires specific requirements for the approval of NDA. Often, the opportunity to market the drug is missed due to the specificity for procedure of the approval in Japan. As a full service CRO we have established our expertise across EU, US and India. With sponsors increasingly including Japan in drug development programs, it is imperative for us to establish our operations through experts like Tokyo CRO in the region. While both partners offer full-service CRO operations independently, our execution synergy is enhanced when operating together, rivaling the capability of any competing CRO.”

Mr Prasanna further said, the global competency level of pharmaceutical companies are changing. As the Japanese pharmaceutical market is the second largest in the world after the US, the global pharmaceutical companies are keen in registering their drug in Japan. This increases the number of clinical trials in Japan and brings huge opportunity for CROs having operations in that country.

According to Mr Prasanna, the proven expertize of Tokyo CRO in conducting clinical trials will be complementary to Ecron Acunova. The alliance network is strengthened through a combination of Tokyo CRO’s presence in Japan with Ecron Acunova’s presence in India and 14 countries in Europe. Tokyo CRO is in a major expansion gear in Asia. It has already established subsidiaries in China and Korea, and with this alliance the company is extending it's services to India.

Speaking on the strength of this alliance, Dr Toshimi Nishiyama, President, Chairman and CEO of Tokyo CRO said, “As a full service CRO, we have established our presence across Japan, China and Korea. This alliance enables us to extend clinical trials to India, Europe and US.

 

In July this year, Ecron Acunova has formed a similar alliance with the US-based Essential CRO.