Early Phase Clinical Trial Development

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Navigating early phase clinical trials

Phase I and Ib trials represent the first practical tests of your compound’s clinical relevance and commercial viability. They are the culmination of years or even decades of research. Moreover, they set the stage for subsequent studies that will ultimately determine your compound’s efficacy, safety and positive impact on patient’s lives.

Maximizing success in early phase development requires a highly coordinated effort to anticipate potential challenges, recruit the right patients, engage top investigators and design a trial that will build a platform for later-stage success.

The dedicated team of PPD global experts in early development and clinical pharmacology performs a critical assessment of your compound’s unique attributes to identify areas of strength and potential weakness that could impact the outcome of your current and subsequent trials. The team develops an integrated, early-phase program that leverages our facilities, site network, operational expertise and development experience to execute your trial in patients and/or healthy volunteers. Each step of the process is conducted with an eye toward supporting later-phase programs and regulatory submissions.

Connect with our early phase clinical trial experts

Ensuring patient diversity in clinical trials

Inclusive research solutions curated to meet your needs at every phase of drug development.

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Helping our clients navigate their Phase I-IB studies

PPD’s early development services keeps an eye toward supporting your later-phase programs.

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Phase I studies conducted in the past five years.

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Households in our patient database.

PPD’s Early Phase Development
and Clinical Pharmacology solutions

Our streamlined services help establish proof-of-concept by reducing time and cost from your development timeline.

View early development services brochure

Early phase CRO services

Three strategically located PPD clinical research units (CRUs) located in Austin, Texas, Orlando, Florida, and Las Vegas, Nevada

A dedicated team of early development professionals in PPD’s early development services group, helping to execute Phase I and IB trials that accelerate your trial and contain costs

Access to a global network of early-phase research sites that conduct studies in general and specialty populations

Unprecedented access to global patients via Accelerated Enrollment Solutions (AES), PPD’s industry-leading patient recruitment engine

A range of consulting services for asset planning in the earliest phases of development and regulatory strategy assessment to mitigate risk

Support for early phase trials including customized assays for drug product evaluation as well as bioanalytical and pharmacokinetic assays

Phase I clinical trial capabilities

First-in-human studies are demanding and multidimensional, requiring a finely tuned balance between scientific rigor, patient safety, regulatory requirements and market access strategies.

Orchestrating these disparate elements requires an experienced and dedicated team of experts who collaborates to inform, advise and execute your Phase I studies. Our dedicated Phase I professionals customize solutions to fit your unique compound, business model and study objectives.

Focus on complex study design

We understand that early phase development in complex studies requires a highly coordinated effort to anticipate challenges, recruit the right subjects, engage experienced investigators and design a trial that will establish a platform for later-stage clinical success.

The PPD early development team performs complex studies through our global network of sites. With over three decades of experience conducting Phase 1 trials, our teams bring a unique understanding of high-quality performance, and we work with our sites to ensure conduct and data meet an exacting standard.

Flexible solutions customized to fit your phase I study needs

Thermo Fisher Scientific’s PPD clinical research business provides comprehensive and flexible pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) support of Phase I-IV clinical trials. We offer clinical pharmacology expertise as part of an integrated drug development program or as a discrete stand-alone service with clinical, scientific and regulatory experience in a variety of areas.

Translational medicine, including toxicokinetics (TK)
Clinical pharmacology program and protocol development and support
Analysis and interpretation of PK and PK/PD data
Scientific and medical expertise aligned to each client’s pipeline
Comprehensive access to patients, healthy volunteers and special populations
Experience in design and execution of both adaptive and traditional early phase studies
A fit-for-purpose, flexible operating model

Read more about practical approaches to translational medicine

Early clinical development global capabilities

The partner you select for your early phase studies is critical in helping you achieve your overall development timeline efficiently and within budget. You need a CRO that has an established network of carefully selected sites centered around quality, medical safety and unparalleled expertise.

We understand the importance of selecting the right sites when executing Phase I studies. Each of our global facilities undergo a rigorous selection process including GCP audits and/or pre-selection assessment visits. We have executed master clinical service agreements or agreed to contract language with all our sites.

47 early development sites spanning across 11 countries

PPD’s global network of Phase I clinical sites offer access to a diverse pool of healthy volunteers and specialty populations across four continents. Many of our 47 strategically located facilities are located near hospitals and universities, allowing us access to hundreds of faculty members in fields such as pulmonology, anesthesiology and neurology. With over 100 studies awarded through our global network in the past five years, our areas of expertise include: renal impairment, hepatic impairment, Japanese Bridging, Chinese Bridging in China and NHV studies.

Supporting indications and specialty populations through a global site network

Indications include:

Dermatological conditions
Digestive
ENT
Genitourinary
Hepatic/renal
Immune/inflammation

Infectious diseases
Cardiovascular/metabolic
Musculoskeletal
Neurological
Respiratory
Sexual disorders

Specialty populations include:

Elderly

Ethnic specialty populations

Pediatrics

Postmenopausal females

Smokers

Hepatic/renal impaired

Broad early development experience

Our three U.S.-based PPD clinical research units are broadly experienced in special procedures with a dedicated focus on complex studies, first-in-human studies and neurodegenerative diseases. With over 30 years of experience in executing Phase I studies through our CRUs, our facilities are host to cutting-edge diagnostic tools, technology and registered medical experts.

Austin

200 beds
Operational since 1986
Large cohort and long-term confinement studies
On-site pharmacy and labs

Tour our Austin clinic

View our Austin opportunities

Las Vegas

32 beds
Adjacent to hospital
Endocrinology and metabolic expertise
Japanese Ethno-bridging studies

Tour our Las Vegas clinic

View our Las Vegas opportunities

Orlando

32 beds
Neuroscience focused
Alzheimer’s and neurodegenerative expertise
Proximal to 125k community of 55+ individuals

View our Orlando opportunities

Early development services: ADME study capabilities

PPD’s early development services can perform absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) studies to understand how a drug is processed in the human body to assess safety and efficacy.

Learn more about our ADME experience at our clinical research unit in Austin, Texas

Additional Early Phase Development Resources

Early Phase Clinical Trials