Biotrial, a CRO specializing in early development, has reinforced its existing CNS group through the acquisition of equipment and key talent from Forenap, a CNS-focused CRO. The new division will be called Biotrial Neuroscience.

The aim of the new Biotrial Neuroscience division is to give clients access to a unique pool of scientific expertise, state-of-the-art equipment and a collaborative environment with other Biotrial groups of excellence: the non-clinical department dedicated to in vivo evaluation, model development and translational medicine, the clinical department involved in early phase healthy volunteer and patient studies, Biotrial Bioanalytical Services (BBS) that offers capabilities for bioanalysis, custom assay development and validation as well as biomarker quantification, and the Biotrial Core Lab for centralized PD assessments (EEG, ECG, etc.) in mono- or multi-center trials.

"Targeted medicine is at the heart of innovation right now and there is an increasing trend to perform clinical trials with a pharmacological and therapeutic approach very early on,” said Jean-Marc Gandon, PharmD, president and CEO of Biotrial. “CNS has been a key area for many years at Biotrial, so when we heard that Forenap was unfortunately closing we wanted to integrate some of Forenap's highly qualified and motivated individuals into our CNS team, as well as their research center's state-of-the-art equipment. This stage is now completed and we have fully established our extensive testing capabilities to help our clients with their projects in neuropsychiatry and neurocognitive diseases, as well as pain relief therapies."

Philippe Danjou, R&D director of Biotrial, added, "I am extremely proud to have had the opportunity to join the dynamic team at Biotrial in an R&D role. Today's environment of developing differentiated drugs that deliver proven patient benefits is more challenging than ever, especially in the CNS domain, so having strong capabilities and expertise in-house is necessary for a CRO to fully meet their clients' needs...With the integration of Forenap's experienced personnel and equipment, Biotrial Neuroscience now provides more extensive services in the field of electrophysiology (EEG, ERPs), sleep studies, neuroimaging and pain models."

Biotrial has been very active in CNS drug evaluation for 20 years, conducting trials to fully assess the psychoactive properties of compounds.