The $14 billion deal that will see Pfizer ($PFE) buy out Californian cancer biotech Medivation ($MDVN) might be hitting the headlines this week, but after weeks of speculation the clinical trial services firm Bioclinica has now seen a major merger of its own.
The London-HQ’d investment firm Cinven has confirmed after reports surfaced yesterday of a deal that it has now in fact agreed to buy the Newtown, Pennsylvania-based Bioclinica. Financial terms have not been made, but Reuters reported yesterday that the deal was worth around $1.3 billion.
Cinven has a legacy of healthcare investments, predominately in Europe, with one of its more recent service company deals being with CRO Medpace, which raised around $160 million earlier this month through an IPO.
This also comes in the same month that CRO inVentiv announced it was dropping its IPO bid, first filed in April, after receiving a major investment from buyout firm Advent--which now sees it own half of the CRO alongside Thomas H. Lee Partners.
Alex Leslie, Partner at Cinven, said: “Cinven's global expertise, deep industry relationships and investment experience in the healthcare industry, including the CRO sector with Medpace, make us the ideal partner for Bioclinica.
“This is an excellent opportunity to invest in a leading provider of technology-enabled services to the clinical trial industry with a collection of high growth businesses across the globe. We look forward to supporting John and the exceptionally talented and experienced team at Bioclinica to develop the business in the years ahead.”
John Hubbard, Bioclinica president and CEO, added: “We are extremely excited about this new partnership with Cinven and see great things on the horizon for Bioclinica. We experienced tremendous growth under our prior ownership and look forward to leveraging the strategic leadership and investment that will come with Cinven. Bioclinica is on a quest to accelerate and bring clarity to clinical trials, and this move will help us to achieve these goals.”
Though it does not call itself a CRO, Bioclinica does work with pharma companies in clinical trials, including using its tech for clinical research data and analytics.
The company has been in a deal-hungry mood, more recently signing a deal with ArisGlobal to help run its drug safety monitoring services.
This was just one of a number of deals in the past 18 months, that includes a new tie-up with Japanese CRO EPS to focus on risk-based monitoring in clinical trials--one of six new deals and pacts the company has made since 2014.
In February, it also launched a new internal “Post-Approval Research” division as it looks to take big steps into the growing realm of helping biopharma with data and costs after launch. BioClinica's profits have grown as a result, with annual earnings before interest, taxes depreciation and amortization now approaching $100 million, according to sources recently speaking to Reuters.
Bioclinica is currently owned by JLL Partners, who took ownership back in 2013 for $123 million.
- check out the release
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