Clinical Trials and Preclinical Infrastructure Asset Map - Life Sciences

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BRITISH COLUMBIA
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
With its Province-wide single-payer government healthcare program, uniform treatment policies,
ethnically diverse rapidly growing population of approximately 4.4 million people, and world class
investigators, B.C. is a hot bed for clinical trials. The Province houses at least 59 clinical trials units (CTUs),
centres, and study sites, as well as six clinical trials support units. All CTUs, centres, and study sites have
Quality Control (QC) and Quality Assurance (QA) measures in place and work closely with the Province’s
Research Ethics Boards (REBs).
Over the past five years (2005/6 to 2009/10) B.C. physicians have conducted over 2,100 clinical trials,
excluding investigator-initiated studies. These trials were sponsored with over $100M by industry,
governments, patient groups, and other not-for-profit organizations. Sixty-two percent of the funds
were obtained from 260 companies, including all of the world’s top pharmaceutical and biotech
companies. This money financed 78% of the projects.
Clinical trials in B.C. cover all major disease areas. The most important, based on number of studies over
the past five years, are those conducted in cancer (23%). In terms of funding, clinical trials in infectious
diseases/ infection receive the most money (24%). Cardiovascular/ cardiology and CNS disorders are
also areas of clinical strength, accounting for 18% and 15% of individual trials and 9% and 17% of funds,
respectively. Furthermore, of the Province’s 59 CTUs, centres, and study sites, 11 focus on cancer/
hematology, 10 on CNS disorders, five on infectious diseases, and four on cardiology. In all disease
areas, the main focus of clinical trials is drug therapies. Over the past five years 62% of all funds for
single trials, and 80% of the studies, have been dedicated to pharmaceuticals.
At least 560 investigators in B.C. have received funding to conduct clinical trials over the past five years,
including 16 who hold endowed Chairs. The distribution of investigator expertise broadly reflects the
number of clinical trials, with 127 working in cancer, 99 in cardiovascular diseases /cardiology, 85 in
CNS disorders, and 48 in infectious diseases. With the largest full-service child health centre in Western
Canada (B.C. Children’s Hospital) pediatrics is also an important area for clinical trials with at least 86
investigators.
Clinical trials have included major components in health economics, health outcomes other than
response to experimental therapy, and epidemiology. Approximately 48 investigators have been
involved in epidemiological aspects of clinical trials, 45 in health outcomes, and 15 in other aspects of
health economics. In addition, the Province has nine health economics and health outcomes research
facilities, and 13 centres that focus on epidemiology and surveillance.
B.C.’s physicians have expertise in all Phases of clinical trials, from first human use studies to Phase IV.
The Province’s strengths in the former are under-pinned by a number of cutting-edge technical and
informatics platforms, such as genomics, pharmacogenomics, proteomics, and microarrays, as well as
expertise in the translation and development of biomarkers.
B.C.’s physicians are also pivotal players in many national and international clinical research and trials
networks, with a number of those networks based in the Province. Investigators are the founders or
co-founders of the Canadian Pharmacogenomics Network for Drug Safety, the CIHR Canadian HIV