Company

In 1997, while serving as Vice President of Global Clinical Research at Lilly Research Laboratories and Chief Medical Officer of Eli Lilly and Company, Dr. Alfonso J. Alanis recognized an industry-wide issue: the lack of representation of ethnic minorities in clinical trials presented to regulatory authorities to obtain the registration approval of new drugs.

The issue was not unique to large pharmaceutical companies. Rather it was widespread and involved large and small pharmaceutical, biotechnology companies and even academic institutions doing clinical research.

In studying the root-causes of this phenomenon, it became clear that these were numerous and complex and that they were different for different ethnic groups. Issues ranging from a deep sense of distrust in the government, in the health-care community and in clinical investigators along with cultural and language barriers were major factors contributing to the problem. However, one common thread in all these cases was lack of access for both, ethnic minority patients and minority physicians, the physicians who for the most part take care of minority patients. Simply speaking, minority physicians and their patients have been systematically excluded from participating in clinical research.
 
Dr. Alanis became convinced that improving the representation of minorities in clinical trials was not only “the right thing” to do but also “the smart thing” to do since it was projected that ethnic minorities would continue to grow from 34% of the general population in the 2000 census, to 51% in 2050. For this reason, he began planning the creation of a new, full-service contract research organization (CRO), dedicated to the recruitment of minority investigators and minority patients in clinical trials.

In October of 2004 Dr. Alanis invited Mr. Alexander, a talented, well-respected and very experienced individual in the field of clinical drug development, to join him in starting this new venture. At the time, Mr. Alexander was retiring from a very successful career in drug development after 34 years of service at Eli Lilly and Company.

Anaclim LLC was registered and legally constituted in March of 2005 and formally started operations in June, 2005.

At this time, Anaclim is fully operational and participating in various trials focusing on the recruitment of patients members of ethnic minorities in clinical trials. We have access to a large pool of experienced minority investigators with access to minority patients, as well as to many other experienced investigators who can bring into our trials a rich mix of patients.