Quintiles, SAS Announce Development Of First-Ever Clinical Trials Statistical Programming Certification

Main Category: Clinical Trials / Drug Trials
Also Included In: Pharma Industry / Biotech Industry
Article Date: 20 Nov 2008 - 6:00 PST

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Quintiles, the world's No. 1 pharmaceutical services company, and SAS are developing a unique program to produce certified specialists in the use of SAS programming to evaluate clinical trials results, the companies announced today.

The Quintiles-SAS Clinical Trials Statistical Programming Certification will certify that the successful candidate has shown that he or she has the expertise necessary to organize, analyze, and report clinical trials results. Incorporating industry-specific data, language and concepts, SAS and Quintiles will develop an exam and related training materials that emphasize the SAS skills statistical programmers need in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

"We're responding to a customer need through this collaboration with Quintiles," said Herbert Kirk, Vice President, SAS Education Division. "The pharma and biotech industries have statistical requirements that our standard certification exams don't measure. With this new certification, our pharma customers can hire people with confidence."

Michael Fiola, Senior Director, Quintiles Global Biostatistics, said, "This initiative demonstrates Quintiles' commitment to advanced training in the statistical evaluation of clinical trial results, which is altogether fitting for a company founded by biostatisticians. We believe we have the industry's most talented, best trained and most highly engaged workforce to help our customers develop and deliver better medicines more quickly. This program illustrates our dedication to delivering the best clinical trials statistical programming in the world."

Fiola says development of the Quintiles-SAS Clinical Trials Statistical Programming Certification program is expected to be completed and ready for release in time for the Pharmaceutical SAS Users Group Conference in Portland, Oregon, May 2009.

About Quintiles

Quintiles Transnational Corp. is powering the next generation of healthcare by providing a broad range of professional services in drug development, strategic partnering and commercialization for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. With more than 22,000 employees and offices in more than 50 countries, it is focused on providing customer-centric solutions that are the gold standard of the industry. For more information, please visit the company's Web site at http://www.quintiles.com.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. With innovative business applications supported by an enterprise intelligence platform, SAS helps customers at 45,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW®.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © 2008 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.

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