Ecron Acunova and Tokyo CRO, Inc have formed a strategic alliance enabling the two companies to strengthen their presence in India, Europe and Japan. The alliance will also provide its sponsors access to a global network.

The alliance provides pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnology companies an access to India, Japan as well as European countries for clinical research. The alliance network is strengthened through a combination of Tokyo CRO's presence in Japan with Ecron Acunova's presence in India and 14 countries in Europe.

"As a full service CRO, we have established our presence across Japan, China and Korea. This alliance enables us to extend clinical trials to India, Europe and US," said Dr Toshimi Nishiyama, president, chairman and CEO, Tokyo CRO.

Driving advantages of geography, D A Prasanna, founder of Ecron Acunova said that Japan is a key market and requires specific Japanese requirements for New Drug Approvals. Often, the opportunity to market the drug is missed due to the specificity for procedure of approval in Japan. "As a full service CRO we have established our expertise across EU, US and India. With sponsors increasingly including Japan in drug development programs, it is imperative for us to establish our operations through experts like Tokyo CRO in the region. While both partners offer full-service CRO operations independently, our execution synergy is enhanced when operating together, rivaling the capability of any competing CRO," he added.

According to the Biopharm Knowledge Publishing report, current CRO market is US$ 20 billion and the global CRO market growing by 12 per cent per annum. As an emerging geography, with increasing cost pressures, Japan is a focus for global sponsors as a clinical trial location. Similarly, Japanese pharma companies are increasingly expanding their trial settings to highly attractive geographies such as India marking Asia as a lucrative clinical trial destination.

Tokyo CRO Inc, a leading Japanese CRO, is headquartered in Tokyo. Its subsidiaries are Seoul CRO in Korea and Beijing CRO in China. The company has a growing presence in East Asia with offices across Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Sapporo and Fukuoka, and provides full services including strategic planning for clinical development, monitoring, data management and biostatistics, post marketing surveillance, safety information management, medical writing, quality assurance, and regulatory affairs.