A Diagnostics & Imaging Week Staff Report
Perceptive Informatics (Waltham, Massachusetts), a provider of clinical trial products and services, reported the expansion of its medical imaging core lab services in Europe, with those services being delivered from Perceptive's office in Berlin, Germany.
The company said its imaging services are focused on helping sponsors to 'rapidiy and objectively assess the safety and efficacy of new drugs, biologics and medical devices in clinical trials.'
As part of the expanded services, Perceptive has added staff in the Berlin office, including diagnostic radiologist Oliver Bohnsack, MD, and Thomas Berger, MD, PhD, a physician and research scientist in telemedicine and e-health.
Mark Coldberg, MD, president of Perceptive, said, 'While we have been supporting global imaging trials for many years, our expansion provides European clients with closer proximity to our innovative imaging solutions. With appropriate planning and execution, medical imaging can be successfully implemented as a trial endpoint, with the potential for significant savings in development time.'
The company said centralized imaging services are valuable in minimizing variability in image acquisition techniques and analysts results, 'so that the power of the clinical trial is not compromised.'
Perceptive has experience with a wide array of imaging modalities including computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR) Imaging, positron emission tomography (PET), ultrasound, nuclear medicine and conventional radiography. Its capabilities range from the application of novel imaging techniques in early drug development to widely validated methods for registration trials.
The company said its infrastructure enables image collection from investigator sites around the world for multi-center clinical trials. A 24/7 call center with multilingual support in 140 languages provides site support and training.
Perceptive, which has about 270 employees and offices in several North American and European locations, offers technology Including web-based portal solutions and tracking tools, Interactive voice response systems and clinical trial management systems, along with electronic diary and investigator database solution. It is a subsidiary of Parexel International (also Waltham), major contract research organization.
Broadening the healthcare professions
Working with the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Learning and Skills Council, the UK Department of Health has given [pounds sterling] 3 million to fund a number of plict programs that will look at ways to attract a wider range of people to the healthcare profession.
UK Health Minister John Hutton said, 'The opportunity to develop a career in the healthcare professions should be open to anyone who has the potential and talent, regardless of their background. We can never accept a situation where large sections of our community are effectively held back from joining some of our most important professions,'
Research has shown that 70% of the medical school population comes from the two highest social classes in Britain, although just 37% of the working age population is from that background. Asian ethnic groups are under-represented in applicants to nursing courses, and there is evidence that black and ethnic minority applicants have difficulty in securing course places. Likewise, only 30% of applicants to physiotherapy courses and 10% of applicants to occupational therapy courses are male.
Hutton said the government funding would go toward ensuring that new recruits to the National Health Service accurately reflect the communities they come from and the communities they serve.
'It is not enough just to increase the numbers of people working for the National Health Service,' he said. 'We live in a diverse, multicultural society, and it is vital that the NHS not only improves the health of all sections of the community, but also reflects that community In the people it employs.'
Hutton was speaking at the Widening Participation in the Healthcare Professions conference, which was hosted by Universities UK.
The [pounds sterling] 3 million will come under the umbrella of the 'Aim Higher' project, which will be launched in April 2004.
Medicsight opens another Lifesyne center
Medicsight plc (London) has opened a new Lifesyne Diagnostic Center in the Westminster section of London. The company said the center, whose location is ,just off Parliament Square in the heart of the city, 'has been designed to showcase both the franchise opportunity of Lifesyne and to generate greater public awareness for the unique Medicsight Expert Recognition software.'
The Lifesyne centers provide scanning for high-risk individuals, with a primary focus on coronary heart disease and lung and colorectal cancer. Medlcsight opened its first such center in Hammersmith last spring, while another was opened in Victoria this summer.
The company said the opening of the new Lifesyne Center and the awarding of the CE mark for its software earlier this month have enabled it to begin a series of clinical trials. Those trials are designed to validate subsequent releases of the Medlcsight software, which automatically inteprets data from computed tomography scanners, highlighting abnormalities to radiologists as what the company refers to as 'the earliest and most treatable stages.
A total of 14 studies will commence next month, with Medicsight saying it recruited more than one-quarter of all private family doctors In London to participate in the trials.
Medicsight else said that it has entered into discussions to license the Expert Recognition Software to a number of countries in the Far East, Middle East and Europe, with the licenses being designed to pay revenue to Medicsight on a per-use basis.
Risk test to come from gene discovery
decode Genetics (Reykjavik, iceland) and Roche Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) have discovered forms of a gene that confer about twice the average risk of myocardial infarction. The companies plan to use the information to develop a DNA-based test to identify individuals who are at elevated risk for a heart attack.
decode received a milestone payment from Roche for the discovery. The two companies formed a $300 million agreement for DNA-based diagnostics in 2001.
