Covance’s laboratory in Singapore and its laboratory service provider in Shanghai, China—Huashan Hospital Center of Laboratory Medicine—have both achieved certification by the College of American Pathologists (CAP). Covance has also entered agreements whereby Japan’s two largest central laboratories—Mitsubishi Kagaku Bio-Clinical Laboratories, Inc. (MBC) and SRL Medisearch, Inc. —will service its clients’ clinical trials in Japan, through the Covance Virtual Central Laboratory service. Additionally, the company expanded its kit production facilities in Sydney, Australia and quadrupled its laboratory testing facilities in Singapore, including expanded quantitative PCR testing.

“With the increasing interest of biopharmaceutical clients in integrating China, Japan, Singapore, India and other countries in the Asia Pacific region into their global studies, these announcements demonstrate Covance’s continued commitment and investment to help our clients increase the speed of drug development and reduce study costs through the conduct of clinical studies in this region of the world,” said John Marolf, general manager of Covance Central Laboratory Services, Asia Pacific and Southern Africa.

In Singapore and Sydney, Covance laboratories provide routine chemistry, hematology, urinalysis and serology, and have recently been expanded to provide additional laboratory testing services. In both the China and Singapore laboratories, the company has expanded its special testing services in the areas of microbiology, immunology, special chemistry and quantitative PCR testing in HIV, HBV and HCV.

The expansion of Covance Virtual Central Laboratory testing services in Japan through the agreement with MBC and SRL Medisearch, Inc. enables the company to offer a broad global laboratory network, with 19 VCL regional laboratories and over 800 local laboratories in more than 35 countries around the world.