Clinical trials facility to be built in Queensland

The first custom-designed facility to conduct Phase I clinical drug trials in Queensland will be built as part of a new start-up company, Q-Pharm.

The new facility is in the final stages of negotiation between the state's leading medical research centre, the Queensland Institute for Medical Research (QIMR), and the University of Queensland's technology commercialisation company, UniQuest.

It will occupy a purpose-built level of the new Clive Berghofer Cancer Research Centre at the Queensland Institute for Medical Research.

Q-Pharm's core business will be conducting Phase 1 clinical trials for new therapeutic drugs and bioequivalence studies for reformulations of existing therapeutics.

The company's managing director will be Prof Wayne Hooper, who is leaving the UQ School of Medicine to lead the new venture. He is currently a co-director of UQ's Centre for Studies in Drug Disposition in the Faculty of Health Sciences. Q-Pharm will have patient beds, outpatient areas, consulting rooms, patients' lounge, drug storage area, pharmacy and data management/office areas.

For patients requiring in-house nursing care, there are six large private bedrooms of a standard equivalent to a high-quality private hospital.

Q-Pharm will open the possibility of new collaborations with pharmaceutical companies and contract research organisations involving phase 1 clinical trials, said QIMR director Prof Michael Good.

Phase I trials, which test new drug candidates for adverse side-effects, are necessary precursors to Phase II testing (efficacy in small numbers of patients) and Phase III trials (effectiveness in large patient populations).