Category: <span>Industry News</span>

We’re proud to share Bellberry’s 2025 Impact Report – our first report bringing together key insights, data and achievements from the past year.

Our stories from 2025 highlight how we continue to support ethical research and promote best practice across the sector, while giving back to the medical research community.

This report reflects the collective efforts of the Bellberry community and our ongoing commitment to protecting research participants and strengthening research quality.

Download the full report below to learn more about our impact

Last month at the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences Gala Dinner in Canberra our new Bellberry-Viertel Fellow was announced!

Congratulations to Associate Professor ZongYuan 宗元 Ge 戈 of Monash University who is a medical AI specialist.

ZongYuan 宗元 Ge 戈 will use the five-year Fellowship to develop Australia’s first AI Unified Phenotype Foundation model for diagnosis, prognosis and discovery in healthcare.

Congratulations to the other two Viertel Fellows Dr Joanna Achinger-Kawecka and Dr Dustin Flanagan.

The Sylvia and Charles Viertel Charitable Foundation has awarded 70 Fellowships over 30 years and as a not-for-profit provider of Human Research Ethics Committee services, Bellberry is proud to be working with the Foundation and Equity Trustees to provide the third Fellowship.

Report highlights international confidence in Australian clinical trials

Global investment in Australian clinical trials is strong, with two thirds of Australian clinical trials, reviewed by Bellberry, funded by international companies according to its 2024 Clinical Trials Activity Report (CTAR).

Bellberry is Australia’s largest ethics and scientific reviewer of research involving humans reviewing approximately 40% of CTN (Clinical Trial Notification) trials in Australia.

Every year since 2019, Bellberry has released its Clinical Trial Activity Report (CTAR) to coincide with International Clinical Trials Day on 20 May. The CTAR describes the portfolio of research conducted in the prior year with Bellberry oversight.

Bellberry’s CEO, Kylie Sproston, says the 2024 data shows that Australia is uniquely placed to attract worldwide investment in clinical trials activity due to the high quality of its healthcare institutions and researchers.

“The 2024 Clinical Trial Activity Report shows that early phase trial activity remains a key strength with significant and continued growth over the last six years,” said Ms Sproston.

“The USA is the largest driver of early phase trials conducted in Australia, with Australia coming second and China third. Other top 10 countries include Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, the UK, Canada, France and Japan,” she said.

“Almost 50 per cent of the trials that Bellberry reviews are First in Human or Phase 1 trials, highlighting Australia’s strong reputation for this skilled and complex type of research.”

In 2024, oncology accounted for more than a quarter of the studies reviewed by Bellberry, while non-clinical trials made up more than 15 per cent of Bellberry reviews.

“Interestingly, we have seen a doubling of the number of social science research activities that Bellberry has reviewed in the last six years from 5% to 10% of total reviews,” said Ms Sproston.

“Australia’s capacity to support the full clinical development pathway is highlighted by the representation of trials in the 2024 CTAR from FIH through to Phase 4, devices, observational, qualitative, social science, registry, audit, and evaluation.”

View our 2024 Clinical Trial Activity Report here

Bellberry is a national, not-for-profit organisation that provides streamlined scientific and ethical reviews of human research established in 2004. It is the 2025 winner of the Championing Health Award in the Telstra Best of Business Awards.

For media queries please contact alisonrogers@bellberry.com.au or on 0488 995 868.

International investment strong in Australian early phase trials

Overseas companies invest in two-thirds of all Australian clinical trials reviewed by Australia’s largest reviewer of human research, Bellberry, according to its Clinical Trial Activity Report (CTAR).

Bellberry reviews more than 40% of CTN (Clinical Trial Notification) trials in Australia and each year releases its CTAR on International Clinical Trials Day (20 May).

The data for the 2023 calendar year found that early phase clinical trials (first in human or Phase 1) involved investment from overseas companies (sponsors) with the top countries being the US, China, South Korea, the UK and Switzerland.

Bellberry’s CEO, Kylie Sproston, says the recent data shows that Australia is uniquely placed to attract significant global investment in clinical trials activity due to the high quality of its healthcare institutions and researchers.

“Continuing previous trends, Australia is a lead destination globally for First in Human and Phase 1 trials, with strong interest from overseas sponsors in the Australian clinical trial ecosystem,” said Ms Sproston.

“Less well recognised is the depth in Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials, totalling 28% of the portfolio.  Collectively, Australia can be a key partner for end-to-end delivery of clinical development of new health innovations.

“Other countries investing strongly in Australian clinical trials are France, Sweden, Taiwan, Germany and Canada. The data shows that we are a highly desirable destination for this skilled and complex work.”

Of the clinical trials reviewed by Bellberry in 2023, private sites conducted 89% of the research with 11% by public sites.

“This reflects the breadth and vibrancy of the privately based research sector including phase one units, hospitals, medical centres and research institutes,” said Ms Sproston.

More than a quarter of the clinical trials undertaken in 2023 were in oncology (27%) with other key areas of research including infectious diseases, neurology, dermatology, haematology, devices and social science (each within 5-10% of the total).

Download the 2023 Clinical Trial Activity Report

Bellberry is a national, not-for-profit organisation that provides streamlined scientific and ethical reviews of human research projects across Australia.  Its focus is on improving the welfare of human research participants and the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of medical research through its HREC reviews and philanthropic activities.

For media queries please contact alisonrogers@bellberry.com.au or on 0488 995 868.

On International Clinical Trials Day, we’re proud to publish the Bellberry Clinical Trial Activity Report 2021. This second annual publication represents a significant proportion of the Australia wide CTN trial activity across the development lifecycle. It demonstrates capability and capacity in a broad range of research areas. The report also captures the originating funding location for inward investment in Sponsored clinical trials, again demonstrating Australia’s active participation in the global development process.

In this reporting period Bellberry was also delighted to become the first Australian organisation to achieve accreditation by the global Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP).

If you have any questions relating to this data, please contact us at bellberry@bellberry.com.au

Click here to register and download the Bellberry Clinical Trial Activity Report 2021

Bellberry awarded AAHRPP accreditation

Bellberry has become the first organisation in Australia to achieve international accreditation for excellence and ethically sound processes in running Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs).

The recognition has come from the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP), which is based in the USA. The AAHRPP site accreditation team visited Australia to conduct an extensive review of Bellberry’s operations earlier this year.

Bellberry’s CEO Kylie Sproston has welcomed the news.

“This is a huge boost at a time when Bellberry is firmly focused on the safe continuation or adjustment of current clinical trial activities and the welfare of participants on those trials,” Ms Sproston said.

Elyse Summers, CEO and President of AAHRPP said that AAHRPP’s Council on Accreditation (Council) met (remotely) and awarded Bellberry full AAHRPP Accreditation.

“The site visit team and Council were highly impressed with Bellberry’s robust human research protections program (HRPP), which serves as an excellent model in Australia for the ethical review of and education about research involving human participants,” said Ms Summers.

Ms Sproston said, “The accreditation is testament to all the hard work undertaken by our staff, the broader Bellberry team, our HREC Community, and the researchers that we serve”.

The primary purpose of AAHRPP accreditation is to strengthen protections for research participants. However, the benefits of AAHRPP’s comprehensive approach extend beyond participants to the research enterprise as a whole. Each accreditation advances that objective and helps build public trust and confidence in research.

Long regarded as the gold standard, AAHRPP accreditation is becoming the norm for quality research programs in the US. All major U.S. independent institutional review boards (IRBs) are AAHRPP accredited. More than 60 percent of U.S. research-intensive universities and 65 percent of U.S. medical schools are either AAHRPP accredited or have begun the accreditation process.

AAHRPP-accredited organisations have been recognised to have more efficient operations, provide more comprehensive protections, and produce high-quality data. AAHRPP-accredited organisations also tend to have more streamlined, effective policies and procedures.

AAHRPP recently published their May newsletter which includes an article on Bellberrys accreditation: https://www.aahrpp.org/

In October 2014 Bellberry hosted the Crossover conference, an international expert scientific meeting that addressed the challenges of early treatment switching in clinical trial design for oncology.  A further scientific meeting in 2015 allowed for the development and launch of best practice guidelines for trial design and statistical methods from an international expert panel.

Bellberry are pleased to announce the publication of two papers arising from the scientific meetings, which have now been accepted by the International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care (Cambridge University Press.)

The first is entitled ‘Treatment Switching: Statistical and Decision Making Challenges and Approaches’  (N. Latimer, C.Henshall, U. Siebert and H. Bell)

The second is entitled ‘Treatment Switching in Cancer Trials: Issues and Proposals’ (N. Latimer, C. Henshall, L.Sansom and R. Ward)