By Branwen Morgan

SYDNEY — This past December, Oprah Winfrey took 300 of her audience members on a much-publicized trip to Australia to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of her US talk show. But it’s going to take more than an Oprah endorsement or a catchy advertising campaign for the land Down Under to remain a preferred destination for the conduct of clinical trials.

As recently as 2005, the Economist Intelligence Unit conducted a benchmarking study that ranked Australia as the number one location for conducting clinical trials. It was placed ahead of countries such as the US, Japan and India on the basis of its high number of trial sites per capita, high percentage of on-time trial completions and low average trial costs.

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Image: Ed Uthman, Flickr