Australia’s newest clinical testing facility opened in Joondalup this week…
With support from the State Government’s Future Health Research Innovation Fund (FHRI), Lotterywest and the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation, Linear Clinical Research officially opened a second state of the art facility, the Linear Joondalup Early Phase Centre, on August 24th.
Linear’s CEO Jayden Rogers said the pandemic had shown the world just how important clinical trials were – not only in fighting disease, but also in driving medical innovation and economic growth – and believed that the multi-million-dollar facility would ensure that WA continued to attract clinical trials of critical global importance.
“The Linear Joondalup Early Phase Centre will be one of the most advanced clinical trial centres in the entire Asia-Pacific region and will help position WA as a leading destination for the world’s leading biopharmaceutical companies,” Mr Rogers said.
“These companies are increasingly looking to run early phase trials in Australia owing to its speed, quality medical system and cost efficiencies.”
For example, Linear was the sole phase one site for the Clover Biopharmaceuticals COVID-19 vaccine which released stellar results and is targeting WHO approval and distribution of 400 million doses by GAVI in 2022.
“Outside of COVID, Linear has been one of the most active sites globally in early phase cancer trials, having supported a wide range of next generation therapies from global biopharma that are having profound impacts in the treatment of cancer.”
Linear is currently operating at the QEII Medical Centre and has been involved in the ground-breaking COVID-19 S-Trimer vaccine trial, world-first cancer immunotherapy trials and numerous trials for the treatment of life-threatening diseases.
Their Joondalup Early Phase Centre is a renovated 930sqm building on the corner of Lakeside Drive and Boas Avenue and will work collaboratively with the Joondalup Health Campus.
The facility includes:
- 24 beds for trial participants broken up into three separate zones to support infection control and the provision of multiple trial designs
- House specimen collection facilities
- A pre-processing laboratory
- Clinical trial pharmacy facilities
- State of the art equipment including integrated vital signs/cardiac telemetry systems
- Volunteer recreation facilities
Clinical trials at the centre will include first-in-human, drug to drug interaction, and vaccine and biosimilar trials, with more than 1,200 trial participants expected to take part in the trials each year.
Medical Research Minister, Stephen Dawson explained that The Future Health Research and Innovation Fund is a key initiative in driving WA’s world-class medical research industry.
“Providing critical resources to establish a state-of-the-art research facility will not only help health and medical research to flourish, but it will also benefit all Western Australians,” said Mr Dawson.
“The project will also create jobs and help to diversify WA’s economy and advance WA’s standing as a leader in health and medical research.”
At full operations, it is expected that the Linear Joondalup Early Phase Centre will support hundreds of direct and indirect jobs in the Joondalup CBD and bring some of the most innovative science in the world to the centre.
It is envisaged the centre will also bring greater value to other groups including ECU Joondalup, Joondalup Health Campus, North Metropolitan TAFE and other healthcare providers.