PAREXEL International and Eli Lilly and Co. have established a strategic functional service provider relationship to support study start-up and site monitoring of clinical trials throughout the Asia/Pacific region. PAREXEL will assist Lilly in bringing greater efficiencies to its clinical research studies to help meet Lilly’s development and commercialization goals.

Lilly will access PAREXEL’s talent and experience in Asia and Australia for study start-up and site monitoring. The collaboration will allow Lilly to focus on its relationships with investigators and regulators and increase its flexibility, productivity and efficiency, according to a PAREXEL statement.

“We are constantly evaluating how we can increase our flexibility and focus internal efforts on our core capabilities,” said Jeff Kasher, Ph.D., Lilly’s vice president of Global Clinical Development. “This strategic agreement enables us to leverage PAREXEL’s expertise in clinical trial monitoring and site start-up services throughout the Asia/Pacific region, which will increase our ability to speed innovative medicines to patients.”

“Our strategic partnership with PAREXEL helps us focus on developing and maintaining relationships with investigators and regulators as core capabilities, while increasing our flexibility for managing monitoring resources to meet portfolio needs,” said Yukihito Kuwagaki, senior director of Clinical Development and Medical Science, Lilly Research Laboratories, Japan.