On 27 May 2016, YBhg. Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, the Director General of Health Malaysia and Dr. Akhmal Yusof, Chief Executive Officer of Clinical Research Malaysia (CRM) accompanied by Mr. Razdan Jamil, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of Malaysia in Paris met with senior representatives, Mr. Philippe Malet, Managing Director for Asia-Pacific International Operations and Dr. Jean-Pierre Abastado, Director for Oncology Innovation Therapeutic Pole as well as their team from Servier Laboratories (Servier) at their Headquarters in Paris.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss possible collaboration for Servier to invest in Malaysia particularly on Phase 1 oncology clinical trials. The Ministry of Health and CRM believe that both Servier and Malaysia are in an excellent position to form a strategic partnership. This is due to two key factors i.e. Servier is currently working to increase its capacity particularly in oncology research with many potential oncology medicines in the pipeline in addition to looking for qualified phase 1 clinical research centers. The second key factor is that the Minister of Health, Datuk Seri Dr. S. Subramaniam recently announced on 20 May 2016 that the Phase 1 Realisation Project (P1RP) will proceed and phase 1 clinical trial centers are to be initiated in Malaysia.
The Minister emphasized that the Malaysian clinical research ecosystem i.e. its infrastructure, processes, systems and manpower are well in place and therefore the time has now come for Malaysia to make this into realization via P1RP. With these 2 key factors, it was not only practical but timely for Malaysia to approach Servier and indicate the Government’s support and facilitation towards Industry Support Research (ISR) as well as highlight the infrastructure and capabilities to conduct phase 1 clinical research in the country.
The meeting was fruitful and saw positive response from the global researchers expressing their happiness to work with CRM in promoting Malaysia in the field of clinical research internationally.
CRM is a non-profit organization that was formed as an Entry Point Project 2 (EPP2) under the National Key Economic Area (NKEA)This is in line with the Malaysian Government’s desire to create Malaysia as a preferred global destination for ISR and to function as an enabler and facilitator to the industry and medical fraternity for the conduct of clinical trials.
Servier Laboratiries was founded in 1954 by Dr. Jacques Servier. Today it is France’s leading independent pharmaceutical company, and the no. 2 French pharmaceutical company in the world, with 21,400 employees in 148 countries over 5 continents including nearly 3,000 of them working in Research and Development (R&D). In 2015, 24% of Servier’s turnover was invested in R&D. Servier is currently developing 23 new potential drugs in oncology, cardiology, metabolic diseases, neuropsychiatry and rheumatology. 92% of Servier's medicines are prescribed outside of France with an approximate turnover of € 3.9 billion in 2015.