CRO Venn Life Sciences is spreading its reach around Europe through M&A, buying up a French outsourcer to bolster its abilities in data management.
Venn plans to acquire a majority stake in Cardinal Systems, a French headquartered company that specializes in randomization, managing clinical trial sites and handling data.
Under the terms of the deal, Venn will trade about $633,000 for an 80% share of Cardinal, agreeing to hand over roughly $267,000 more in September to pick up another 5%. The CRO will hold a call option on the rest of Cardinal with the price tied to sales performance, the companies said.
The buyout, Venn's third in a year, is designed to better flesh out the CRO's platform of offerings, CEO Tony Richardson said, bolstering its data capabilities while complementing its existing strengths.
"The combination of Cardinal's IT expertise with Venn's extensive clinical trial management experience enables us to offer our sponsors a more holistic approach to managing their trials," Richardson said in a statement. "Our sponsors have highlighted to us in recent times the importance of having these services under the one roof, and we moved quickly to find a suitable company that fits into the Venn organization."
In December, Venn acquired Irish CRO Medevol in a deal worth about $1.1 million, part of an effort to expand its presence in and around the U.K. A month before, the company traded about $1 million in stock for CRM Clinical Trials, a full-service German CRO.
- read the statement