A strategic partnership between two research organizations based in Glasgow, Scotland will combine formulation expertise with clinical trial capabilities to streamline the development and passage to market of new, enhanced drug formats, according to PharmaTimes.

The partners are Bio-Images Group and CPS Research, which have formalized their relationship following the successful completion this year of their first joint undertaking, a phase I clinical trial for an unnamed “major pharmaceutical client.”

Bio-Images Group comprises Bio-Images Research, which specializes in gamma scintigraphy, a medical imaging technique for assessing the behavior of drug formulations, along with formulation development company Drug Delivery International.

CPS Research is a clinical research organization with more than 20 years’ experience in patient recruitment and running phase II, III and IV trials across a wide range of therapeutic areas.

Marrying Bio-Images’ scientific nous in pharmaceutics and drug delivery with CPS’s clinical capabilities enables the partners to offer integrated pharmaceutical and clinical development solutions, they said, citing benefits such as access to a broad patient base and to a clinical-research ward facility at Bio-Images’ site in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

Bio-Images and CPS Research also set the relationship in the context of bolstering the UK’s beleaguered clinical research base.

“In the current climate of reducing medical research being conducted in the UK, it is important that we are able to offer our customers a unique service of the very highest quality,” commented Dr Alan Wade, director and co-founder of CPS Research.