Quintiles Transnational will open a central lab in Mumbai, India. According to a news release, the facility will be equipped and staffed before the end of 2006 and is expected to be ready to support new trials by the first quarter of 2007. The lab is located in Leela Business Park in Mumbai, as are Quintiles’ core clinical research and electrocardiogram (ECG) businesses.

“Close coordination between clinical investigators and a central lab network helps assure the high quality of data and improves the timeliness of sample processing,” said Tom Wollman, Senior Vice President, Quintiles Global Central Laboratories. “Investigators are very aware of the time needed to transport samples to central labs, so the addition of a lab in India will give investigators more flexibility in scheduling patient examinations and help them complete studies on time.”

Alan Ong, Vice President and General Manager, Quintiles Labs Asia, said: “Because we will be among the first global central laboratories in India, it also will help our sponsors expand their options to support global clinical trials, particularly regarding access to patients. For Quintiles, this allows us to further maximize our global reach while minimizing our customers’ shipping costs. Because it is a fully owned facility, all operations from sample management to testing to final data transfer will be tightly controlled under our global core quality standard.”

Ong added that the lab in India “means that together with our existing labs in China and Singapore that cover Asia Pacific, Quintiles Laboratories will have facilities in all the major recruitment hubs in Asia.” He said the Mumbai lab will participate in proficiency surveys as a prelude to obtaining full certification by the College of American Pathologists (CAP).

Ferzaan Engineer, CEO of Quintiles India, said the new lab in Mumbai will contribute to the continued growth of the regional business. “Since its inception in 1997, our core clinical research business has grown exponentially due to strong customer demand for quality investigator sites in India,” Engineer said. “The new central laboratory in Mumbai will enhance the suite of services we offer in India, which include ECG, interactive voice response (IVR) and data management services as well as clinical research.” The India company has about 675 employees in offices in Bangalore, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

If India does not appeal, Outsourcing Pharma has a new article about an up-and-comer: Morocco. Or consider Durham country, North Carolina, which is considering $2 million in incentives to Quintiles to help it expand and hire an additional 1,000 jobs in the Research Triangle Park area. The Raleigh News & Observer says that “county leaders are offering up to $2 million over a five-year period, contingent on the construction of the new facility and on Quintiles making the 1,000 new jobs open to area residents and not just transferring workers from other Quintiles offices.”