PAREXEL Opens New Early Phase Unit in South Africa

PAREXEL International Corporation (NASDAQ: PRXL), a global biopharmaceutical services provider, today announced that it has expanded its capabilities through the opening of a new early phase unit in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The Port Elizabeth unit has added more than 40 beds to PAREXEL’s global early phase capacity of over 580 beds. In addition to providing the capability to conduct a variety of studies in healthy volunteers, the core focus of the Port Elizabeth unit is on early phase studies in patients, from First in Man to Proof of Concept studies.

PAREXEL’s other early phase units in South Africa, based in Bloemfontein and George, have a proven track record of conducting challenging early phase patient studies by combining Phase I expertise with successful patient recruitment capabilities. PAREXEL’s early phase units are located across three continents, including in Baltimore and Los Angeles in the United States; London, United Kingdom; and Berlin, Germany.

“Increasing the number of patients per site and reducing the overall number of sites in a study serves to decrease variability—improving study quality and reproducibility,” said Michelle Middle, MB ChB, Corporate Vice President and Worldwide Head of Early Phase, PAREXEL International. “The opening of our early phase unit in Port Elizabeth represents PAREXEL’s further commitment to offering rapid recruitment solutions to our clients. Port Elizabeth joins our other early phase units, which are integrated and harmonized to handle complex global studies involving healthy volunteers and patient populations.”

As part of the official inauguration of its early phase unit in Port Elizabeth, PAREXEL will bring together experts from around the world for an invitation-only symposium on February 24, 2010 entitled “Early Drug Development: The Challenge to Get Better Data Sooner.” The symposium will address the latest trends and best practices to assist biopharmaceutical companies in overcoming key early phase development challenges. Members of PAREXEL’s dedicated team of early phase experts will be in attendance to discuss the design and implementation of First in Man through Proof of Concept studies. These experts will address how biopharmaceutical companies can avoid costly late stage clinical development failures by making better and earlier go/no-go decisions.