CRO Celerion, which provides early-stage drug development solutions, said its Belfast facility has gained membership within the U.K. Respiratory Therapeutic Capability Cluster. Celerion will work with key decision makers in the U.K. to develop and execute phase I and IIa studies with targeted patient populations.

The U.K. Respiratory Therapeutic Capability Cluster is a cooperative of internationally leading clinicians and scientists whose aim is to improve the speed of developing innovative therapies for respiratory diseases by working in collaboration with research groups of the pharmaceutical industry. 

Celerion has access to laboratory capabilities (flow cytometry, flow cytometric cell sorting, microbiology, 16S, deep sequencing, MLST, transcriptomics) as well as lung imaging techniques (CT acquisition of images, dedicated MRI time, advanced CT analysis capabilities and MRI acquisition of images).  The collaboration with the U.K. Respiratory Therapeutic Capability Cluster provides access to patients suffering from asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, bronchiectasis and interstitial lung disease.