Deborah Johnson Wood
Saint Mary's Health Care plans to construct a 12-bed clinical trial unit on its downtown Grand Rapids campus as part of its neuroscience research program. The unit will focus on Phase 1 clinical trials and will be available as a community resource for other medical facilities in West Michigan.
The 6,000-square-foot clinic will occupy much of the main floor of Saint Mary's medical office building, 260 Jefferson Ave. SE. Patients will participate in inpatient and outpatient central nervous system (CNS) clinical trials and non-CNS trials in diabetes, nephrology, HIV/AIDS and other diseases.
"Saint Mary's is a founding member of
ClinXus and through that group the need for a phase one clinic became clear," says Susan Hoppough, director of research and innovation at Saint Mary's. "The focus will be on those individuals that have a diagnosis that requires that they stay in an inpatient study for the duration of the trial.
"I would anticipate we would be offering clinical trials for ALS and also opportunities for medical device clinical trials," she says.
Hoppough says Saint Mary's has developed relationships with the
Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, the
Van Andel Institute and
TGen that will help move medical discoveries from the laboratory into clinical trials.
"As we partner with MSU in particular, they will be able to move their Parkinson's research from clinical trials into patient populations," Hoppough says.
The unit's design incorporates flexibility – clinicians can move equipment in and out as needed and each four-bed module will have space for family members to stay with the patient.
"This is really an opportunity for us to bring clinical trials to patient populations who might otherwise not have access to this," Hoppough says. "Saint Mary's is mission driven to serve the poor and underserved, and this continues our mission to bring the best in medical care and research to the community right in West Michigan."
Source: Susan Hoppough, Saint Mary's Health Care
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