New portal showcases Canadian clinical research capabilities

Ottawa, ON – The Canadian Clinical Trials Coordinating Centre (CCTCC) has launched the Canadian Clinical Trials Asset Map, a pan-Canadian database showcasing Canada’s clinical research capacities.

Intended to help Canada regain its position as a leading destination for clinical trials, the online portal provides a comprehensive picture of Canada’s clinical research assets with details on clinical trial sites, research networks, research ethics boards, institutions/hospitals and individual clinical research experts.

The CCTC says it offers tremendous marketing benefits to clinical research organizations and investigators and will allow clinical trial sponsors to place trials effectively and efficiently reducing clinical trial start-up times. In addition, it is bilingual, free to use, easy to search, comprehensive and regularly updated. A forthcoming update will allow users to search by federal riding boundaries.

“The CCTAM is an important tool for enhancing Canada’s competitiveness for clinical research. The availability of this resource will simplify the study feasibility process by quickly identifying suitable clinical trial sites in Canada,” said Dr. Shurjeel Choudhri, senior vice president and head, medical and scientific affairs, Bayer Inc. “It will also be a valuable tool for highlighting Canada’s clinical research capabilities to our global organizations.”

The portal can be accessed at www.base.cctam.ca/.

CCTCC itself was launched in April 2014 and is a partnership between the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Canada’s Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D) and HealthCareCAN. It has the overall goal of improving the coordination of clinical trial activities and streamlining regulatory processes for companies and researchers.