The new SCIREX Clinical Research Unit at Yale -- a 6,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility for testing drugs that affect the central nervous system -- is now open at 320 Congress Ave. The center formally marks the strategic affiliation forged by the School of Medicine's psychiatry department and SCIREX Corporation to conduct clinical research on potential new drugs that can be used to treat psychiatric disorders.
"New treatments for psychiatric disorders are desperately needed, and the complexity of drug approval requirements is significant," says Michael Choukas, SCIREX's president and chief executive officer. "By collaborating with full-time Yale faculty psychiatrists, we hope to speed clinical drug development and potentially reduce the time it takes for new therapeutic discoveries to reach the market."
SCIREX -- a contract research organization (CRO) headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania -- performs drug development services for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
With this new program, SCIREX will work closely with Yale psychiatry faculty members to plan, conduct and advise on central nervous system clinical studies.
According to Dr. Benjamin S. Bunney, chair of the psychiatry department: "By working together, we gain not only the freedom to search for new discoveries, but also earlier access to novel therapeutic compounds which could lead to increased understanding of both normal and diseased brain function. Ultimately, our patients will benefit because our combined efforts may result in decreasing the time it takes for new therapeutic discoveries to reach the market." The affiliation, he notes, also shows how research involving faculty physicians can help bring commercial enterprises into New Haven -- in this case, the Hill neighborhood.