LONDON, September 10 /PRNewswire/ --     GCPj Awards

Clinical research professionals from all over the world gathered at the
Gibson Hall in London Thursday 6 September for the inaugural Good Clinical
Practice Journal (GCPj) Awards. Opening this landmark event, Chairman of the
Commission on Human Medicines Professor Sir Gordon Duff said the awards were
a most important celebration of innovation and enterprise in the development
of new medicines. "I hope it will become a traditional event in the public
health calendar", he told the 200+ audience.

The host for the evening, Dr Phil Hammond, a GP, writer, broadcaster and
comedian, mixed laughter - "the best form of medicine according to the ho ho
ho holistic humour institute!" with more serious issues. He bemoaned the poor
headlines in the press relating to the pharmaceutical industry, clinical
trials and the NHS and stressed the need for an awards programme like the
GCPj Awards to highlight the achievements of clinical research.

GCPj editor Jenine Willis said "These awards are GCPj's chance to show
industry's commitment to improving healthcare through innovative, high
quality, rigorous clinical research. Better healthcare not only benefits
society as a whole, it has a direct impact on the global economy and raising
quality of life everywhere. Of course this is a serious business, but GCPj
launched these awards to celebrate these achievements and tell the wider
world about them too."

Individuals, teams and organisations were recognised by the 11 awards
categories. The first company to receive an accolade was Pfizer who won the
Most Successful Global Trial, which was sponsored by the global clinical
research organisation (CRO) Kendle. The trial in question recruited renal
cancer patients at 101 sites in 11 countries.

Accepting the award, Deborah Roberts from Pfizer UK Oncology said "It's
an honour and a privilege to accept this award on behalf of all of the Pfizer
team who have worked to develop Sutent and have through this made a
significant difference to the lives of thousands of renal cancer patients and
their families. The main thing for me after working for 11 years in oncology
is to have patients ringing up to say thank you."

Another notable winner was South Africa's Aurum Institute for Health
Research. It picked up the Most Innovative Patient Recruitment Strategy award
for the Thibela TB Study, which used innovative communication techniques to
enrol over 38,000 miners to the study. Dr Audrey Banyni, of the Mine Health
and Safety Council in South Africa, said: "I am more than happy. In fact,
ecstatic. It is a challenging trial because we are involving different mining
organisations. The participants are from very different cultural backgrounds,
including Zulus and people from Mozambique. We also have the involvement of
the labour movement. So it is actually a great achievement for Aurum."

One of the key individual awards of the evening was the Clinical Research
Professional of the Year, which was sponsored by the UK Institute of Clinical
Research. The winner, Dr Richard Schulz from the CRO Chiltern International
in the Czech Republic was praised for being a role model to both CRO and site
staff, inspiring them to achieve outstanding result, particularly in an
emerging region.

The Clinical Research Team of the Year was sponsored by global CRO i3,
and the award was presented to Novartis Pharma's Aclasta/Reclast Horizon RFT
Team. Accepting the award on behalf of their colleagues Dr Erik Eriksen and
Dr Phil McKernan explained their team "...spread across the Atlantic, half of
them were in the US and half were in Basel. So there was a lot time
challenges. But the main challenge was that the trial was outsourced to a
great extent and to co-ordinate that effort was a testimony to the teams on
both sides of the Atlantic. And it has resulted in rapid approval by both the
FDA and the CHMP."

The Clinical Research Programme which Best Promoted Access to Medicine
was awarded to MDS Pharma Services. The judges called the Phase III Malaria
Trial of Eurartekin "an excellent example of a public/private collaboration
to find effective and affordable treatments for a widespread debilitating
condition prevalent in many developing countries." In response, Dr James
Pusey from MDS Pharma Services said "the trial is a major step forward in
helping to treat and prevent a terrible disease in under developed countries.
We are very proud to be part of the team that made this happen."

As the evening drew to a close Saul Shiffman collected the GCPj Lifetime
Achievement Award for his work in developing patient-reported outcome
measures and e-diaries for clinical research.

More details of the event, together with pictures and winners' responses,
will be published in a special supplement, "The GCPj Awards 2007", in
October. Photos are also available on request

The Winners and Sponsors

Most Successful Global Trial

Sponsored by Kendle

Winner - A Phase III, randomized study of SU011248 versus interferon-alfa
as first-line systemic therapy for patients with metastatic renal cell
carcinoma - Pfizer Global Research and Development

Most Successful Company or Programme of the Year in Raising GCP Standards

Sponsored by Trial Trove

Winner - Good Clinical Data Management Practices Document - Society for
Clinical Data Management

Best Technological Development in Clinical Trial Management Systems

Sponsored by PAREXEL

Winner - ClinPhone Drug Accountability solution - ClinPhone

Best Technological Development in Planning and Educational Tools in
Clinical Trials

Sponsored by PAREXEL

Winner - SecureConsent - Consent Solutions Inc

Project Manager of the Year

Sponsored by MDS Pharma Services

Winner - Shemus Dore, Senior Data Management Project Manager, ICON

Most Innovative Patient Recruitment Strategy

Sponsored by Pharmaprojects

Winner - Thibela TB Study - Aurum Institute for Health Research

Academic Researcher of the Year

Sponsored by Institute of Clinical Research (India) and Cranfield
University

Winner - Professor Neil Marlow, Professor of Neonatal Medicine, Academic
Division of Child Health, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham; and Honorary
Consultant Paediatrician, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham University
Hospitals NHS Trust, UK

Clinical Research Professional of the Year

Sponsored by the Institute of Clinical Research

Winner - Dr Richard Schulz, Country Manager Czech Republic, Chiltern
International

Clinical Research Team of the Year

Sponsored by i3

Winner - Aclasta/Reclast Horizon RFT Team - Novartis Pharma AG

Clinical Research Programme that Best Promoted Access to Medicine

Sponsored by Partnerships in Clinical Trials 2007

Winner - Large-scale Phase III Malaria Trial of Eurartekin - MDS Pharma
Services

GCPj Lifetime Achievement Award

Winner - Dr Saul Shiffman

Good Clinical Practice Journal (GCPj) is the monthly,
subscription magazine chosen by dedicated research professionals. It aids
awareness, interpretation and implementation of the regulations that affect
global clinical trials. GCPj helps bring drugs to market faster through
commitment to excellence in all aspects of clinical research. Request a free
trial at http://www.gcpj.com/trial