Madrid, March 26th. 2014– Today, Barcelona hosted the Conference on Innovation in the Private Healthcare Sector, organized by the Institute for the Development and integration of Healthcare (IDIS), in collaboration with FARMAINDUSTRIA, Asebio, and Fenin. During this event, the Clinical Research in Private Centers’ Annual Report was presented.

During the opening session, FARMAINDUSTRIA’s Director General, Humberto Arnés, stressed the strategic role of the biomedical R&D in the country’s economy, because of its traction power for other sectors, as well as for its indispensable contribution to improve Spain’s competitiveness.

With the objective of reinforcing said contribution, Farmaindustria launched the BEST Project of excellence in Clinical Research for Medicines in Spain eight-years ago , whose aim is to foster R&D investments through the assessment and monitoring clinical research processes which are conducted in our country, at the same time it allows to identify different practices being undertaken, as well as taking consistent measures which lead to improving its efficiency and competitiveness in this field.

Currently, the BEST Project in formed by 43 R&D leading pharmaceutical companies, 57 healthcare centers (public and private), 14 management centers belonging to the Health Departments of Regional Governments, and four independent clinical research groups. Its aim is to identify the success factors which steer to a more efficient clinical research, at the same time these results can be benchmarked nationally and internationally.

According to BEST Project’s BDMetrics data, more than 85,000 patients and more than 700 healthcare centers have participated in clinical researches in Spain during the last nine-years. Furthermore, the number of clinical trials with the participation of at least one private center are now close to 40%, the participation of private centers grew in the earliest phases of research (especially Phases I and II), and namely in the area of Oncology. Likewise, this participation has increased in pediatric clinical research, as well as for orphan medicines.