Quintiles bags double honours at SCRIP Awards

Dr Dennis Gillings

Quintiles founder Dr Dennis Gillings, CBE, has received the SCRIP Lifetime Achievement Award and the company he started has been named “CRO of the Year” at the 2012 SCRIP Awards in London. The SCRIP Awards acknowledge excellence in the biopharmaceutical industry, based on judging by an independent panel of 16 life sciences experts. The eighth annual awards ceremony, held on November 28 at The Lancaster hotel in London.

Being named CRO of the Year by SCRIP is a prestigious honour for Quintiles, the world’s leading provider of biopharmaceutical services. It has received it three times in the past four years.

Likewise, Gillings’ lifetime achievement award is equally celebrated. Mike Ward Chief Content Officer for Datamonitor Healthcare and Scrip Intelligence said, “Scrip’s Lifetime Achievement Award is reserved for an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the pharmaceutical/biotech industry. In founding Quintiles, Gillings made an indelible impact on drug development by pioneering the CRO industry, revolutionising the field to the extent that clinical trials expertise now rests with these companies. The CRO sector is still fast growing and plays a crucial role in drug development.”

“I am honoured to receive this award,” said Gillings. “It is humbling to be recognised by this prestigious panel, and I share this with Quintiles’ employees, past and present, around the world who make our company what it is today. During these past three decades, many diseases have gone from being life threatening to manageable thanks to the work we have done with our biopharmaceutical customers.

“As we look ahead, I believe we on are on the cusp of many new discoveries which will further transform healthcare. It is my goal to ensure that Quintiles can help enable that innovation to make a difference to patients around the world.”

Gillings has invested his 40-plus year career working to improve health around the world, beginning in 1971 as a professor of biostatistics at the University of North Carolina. In April 2012, he stepped away from the day-to-day operations of Quintiles and he continues to serve as executive chairman. Today, Quintiles is the largest global provider of services to the pharma and biotech industry.

EP News Bureau – Mumbai