Quintiles announced that Kenexa will handle its employee process outsourcing (EPO) in Japan. “We knew we needed to find a staffing solution that would be easily customized for our industry and that would improve our ability to recruit the most talented candidates,” said Dave Cooper, vice president of global staffing at Quintiles. “We have been pleased with Kenexa’s survey product and the excellent service we have received from that team. So, when we began looking for an EPO vendor, Kenexa’s proven outsourcing solution was a natural fit for us.”

Electronic data capture (EDC) firm Nextrials has been chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the AO100 Top Private Companies for 2007. In addition to EDC, the Nextrials Prism product combines randomization,  safety reporting, inventory management and clinical trial management functionality. The fifth-annual AO100 list was compiled by the AlwaysOn editorial panel, among nominations from venture investors, investment bankers and other industry experts.

The Canadian Retinal Trials Group said it has standardized on Clinipace’s clinical software platform, Tempo. The first project will be a macular degeneration study. “Selecting Clinipace’s Tempo as our technology platform was a significant step in establishing a collaborative infrastructure for our 12-site network. It was important for us to standardize on a technology platform that was easy for our investigators to use in order to leverage the network immediately and effectively.”

CogState, announced that it is has signed second contracts with Merck and GSK, respectively. Brad O’Connor, chief executive officer of CogState, said: “CogState’s continued revenue growth is dependent upon our ability to work with our pharmaceutical company customers on an on-going basis.”

The website http://www.heart.org reports that the Cochrane Collaborative has published its own analysis of the GSK diabetes blockbuster Avandia. The new analysis is in alignment with the recent New England Journal critique of Avandia’s risk/benefit ratio. One of the authors of the Cochrane report told heart.org: “We wanted to look at the whole risk/benefit ratio. We didn’t find any benefits of rosiglitazone over other drugs for type 2 diabetes, but the drug is clearly associated with increased risks of edema, fractures, and weight gain.” A GSK spokesman disputed the new analysis.

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