Australian CRO Novotech Announces Expanded Asia Reach into Hong Kong and Philippines at DIA 2013

Novotech, Australia’s largest clinical CRO has expanded its Asia reach into Hong Kong and the Philippines, building on its established network which already includes a presence in Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, India and Malaysia.

As a regional CRO, Novotech has been actively involved in hundreds of drug development programs in the Asia Pacific over the past 17 years.

CEO Alek Safarian said Hong Kong and the Philippines were significant markets that were in high demand from USA and EU based pharma and biotech sponsors.

Hong Kong has a long history of attracting global clinical trials having participated in over 1000 global clinical trials since 1996.

In addition, Hong Kong is officially recognized by the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) for conducting clinical trials for drug registration purposes in mainland China in certain therapeutic areas.

The Philippines is an attractive emerging CRO market with its rapidly improving infrastructure and a large patient population where English is widely spoken.

“The emergence of Asia as a patient recruitment location for global clinical trials has been further validated by a recent EMA report showing countries such as the Philippines contributing 1.2% of all patients in marketing authorisation applications to the EU in recent years,” said Novotech CEO Alek Safarian.

According to the report, recruitment in the Asia Pacific region has grown more than four fold since 2005 to reach 12.2% of the global total in 2011.

“With staff on the ground, and projects already awarded in both Hong Kong and the Philippines, we expect these new offices to make a strong contribution to our regional expansion efforts in 2013 and 2014,” added Safarian.