Florida Hospital has appointed a new director Dore J. Shepard of cancer services for West Volusia. Shepard will be in charge for developing and maintaining a cancer service line for Florida Hospital DeLand and Florida Hospital Fish Memorial. Shepard, with over 25 years working in oncology in Indiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania, joins Florida Hospital following serving as vice president of cancer services at John and Dorothy Morgan Cancer Center in Allentown, Pa.

Profil Institute for Clinical Research, Inc. and Florida Hospital announced a joint venture to establish a early phase clinical services center for metabolic disease research, including diabetes, obesity and cardiometabolic diseases. Profil Institute at Florida Hospital will initially be located at the new Florida Hospital-Sanford-Burnham Translational Research Institute (TRI) facility in Orlando and is expected to begin operations in late 2012. The institute will join the TRI as part of Florida Hospital's Health Village development zone and will bring approximately 75 new jobs to the region over the next 5 years. The joint venture combines Florida Hospital's patient network on the East Coast and TRI's translational research focus with Profil Institute's Center of Excellence reputation and capabilities in early phase clinical metabolic drug development. Profil Institute at Florida Hospital will expand Profil Institute's capacity to now offer disease focused early phase clinical research services out of two locations, the company's core facility located in Chula Vista, California, and the newly established Profil Institute at Florida Hospital in Orlando. Profil Institute's broader geographical reach and the institute's ability to cover the entire spectrum of metabolic early phase clinical research services from drug development planning to study protocol design and execution to report writing and peer-reviewed publications, further positions Profil Institute as a strategic alliance partner for their bio-pharmaceutical clients. Profil Institute's capabilities and Center of Excellence approach will continue to produce meaningful early phase data to increase the efficiency of later phase clinical trials and will continue to play a significant role in helping to qualify or dis-qualify metabolic drug leads as early as possible in the clinical development process.