ICON, a global provider of drug development solutions and services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, has been awarded Best Clinical Research Organisation at the Vaccine Industry Excellence (ViE) Awards. ICON was presented with the award at the World Vaccine Congress which took place in Washington this week.

The ViE Awards honour individuals and organisations that continually set standards of excellence and have made outstanding achievements in the vaccine industry over the past 12 months. ICON was selected by a panel of senior industry representatives from government, academia, pharmaceutical and biotech organisations as the best CRO according to the following criteria:

• The range of services provided in niche and core therapeutic areas
• Methods of performance improvement or introduction of new services
• Attention to, and quality of, relationships with clients
• Reaching of milestones and final / ongoing outcomes
• Building and maintaining existing and long-term partnerships

“We are very proud to be recognised as the world’s best CRO in vaccine development,” commented Dr. Steve Cutler, chief executive officer, ICON. “Over the past year, we have expanded the capabilities of our Vaccine Centre of Excellence to provide commercial and government clients with the services, site relationships and geographic footprint they need to develop vaccines for a wide range of infectious diseases and global viral epidemics. This award is recognition of the hard work and dedication of the ICON vaccines team and I’m delighted to see their efforts being honoured as the industry’s best.”

ICON’s Vaccine Centre of Excellence combines in-depth vaccine experience, extensive laboratory testing, enabling technologies and longstanding site partnerships to help commercial and government clients take time and cost from their vaccine development programs. In 2016, ICON acquired ClinicalRM, which enhanced ICON’s capabilities in infectious diseases, vaccine development and the response to bio-threats and global viral epidemics. ICON’s vaccine site relationships in over 40 countries offers clients accelerated vaccine patient recruitment capabilities, which were further enhanced in 2015 through the acquisition of PMG Research, an owned network of clinical research sites in 14 metropolitan areas in the U.S.