Almac Expands Asia Pacific Operations, Establishes Regional Operations Centre in Singapore

Almac today announced the expansion of its clinical services and technologies capabilities to include on-the-ground leadership as well as technical, project and operational resources in Asia. The company has established regional hubs in Singapore and Japan to better enable the industry’s growing need to conduct clinical trials in Asia and/or manage global trials from the region. Local teams apply insights gained from Almac’s experience managing more than 10,000 trials around the world to design, implement and manage drug supply strategies and efficient technology solutions throughout the life of the study.

“From protocol to patient to kit destruction, Almac delivers high quality, flexible and cost-effective solutions that enable a more comprehensive approach to trial supply management,” says Alan Armstrong, CEO, Almac. “No one else can provide the global scale, scope and reach required to optimize sponsors’ R&D investments across every facet of the supply chain — within Asia or around the world.”

Providing expert and responsive service is essential for all trials, but particularly those managed from or within Asia. Sponsors must be able to navigate technical, logistical and clinical complexities from trial start-up through to supply and patient management. Almac’s local teams support studies of all sizes and degrees of complexity, helping sponsors to achieve time-saving efficiencies, reduce costs and improve trial outcomes. Services are augmented by a secure, web-based interface to monitor trial execution anywhere in the world, multi-lingual technical and project teams, and an in-house 24 x 7 x 365 hotline connecting site staff to on-call clinicians and unblinding specialists. By positioning operational resources within the same time zones as where trials are executed, Almac is able to resolve issues in less than 24 hours — which in turn eliminates communications delays and improves patient care.

Almac is strengthening its Asia Pacific offerings by establishing a new secondary packaging facility in Singapore that will open by the end of 2014. Through this facility, the company will better enable just-in-time supply management and support drug pooling strategies, which further optimize the supply chain, minimize wastage and reduce costs.

“With 15 percent of all clinical trials conducted in Asia, it’s imperative that we provide localized service and support to our clients,” continues Armstrong. “We’ve long managed clinical trials on a global basis, but there’s now sufficient critical mass that requires we establish dedicated resources in the region. I’m pleased that our international expertise and global capabilities are now even more accessible to sponsors in this critically-important part of the world, and look forward to opening our new packaging facility later this year.”