Drug Researcher MDS Adds Beds in Lincoln
Posted on: Friday, 12 August 2005, 21:01 CDT
Aug. 12--A drug research company in Lincoln is adding 60 beds for early clinical trials in a $1.2 million renovation, officials said Thursday.
MDS Pharma Services will grow from 172 beds to 232 by early next year, adding up to 50 new jobs, including clinical trial managers, statisticians, technicians and nurses.
The expansion also could bring up to $6 million more in annual revenue to MDS Pharma, which employs about 600 full- and part-time workers in Lincoln.
Jim McClurg, MDS Pharma senior vice president and chief scientific officer, said Nebraska's commitment to economic development, including expansion of business tax incentives this year under Legislative Bill 312, helped his company decide to expand in Lincoln rather than somewhere else.
Even if the current project does not qualify for tax incentives, McClurg said, past additions have qualified and future additions might, making Nebraska a good place for the company to grow.
Pennsylvania-based MDS Pharma Services, a subsidiary of MDS Inc. of Toronto, also has early clinical research facilities in New Orleans, Montreal, Phoenix and Neptune, N.J. It has European sites in Hamburg, Germany, and Belfast, Ireland.
For the first three years, the addition in Lincoln will be dedicated to one client's research. Liz Parlett, a spokeswoman for MDS Pharma, declined to name the client.
A new way to assess the impact of drugs on diseases helped spark the Lincoln expansion, McClurg said. The additional beds will be used primarily for detecting and assessing biomarkers, which are changes in the blood caused by diseases, and the drugs being used to battle them and side effects, McClurg said.
The technology helps make research safer, faster and more effective, McClurg said.
Volunteers in clinical trials often spend several days or even a couple of weeks being monitored by doctors and researchers at the clinic as they take drugs or undergo special therapies, McClurg said.
MDS Pharma also has a bio-analytical laboratory in Lincoln, giving customers convenient access to both types of research, company officials said.
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Source: Omaha World-Herald
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