Bullish Quintiles CEO sees big growth ahead

With employees preparing to move into a gleaming new headquarters building, the chief executive at Durham, NC-based Quintiles Transnational sees some big opportunities coming up as the biopharma industry undergoes a head-to-toe makeover.

In the past, founder and CEO Dennis Gillings tells the News & Observer, big mergers have led to a drop in new drug offerings. But this time around, he says, it will be different, with a big emphasis placed on new drugs to counter expiring patents. The FDA, meanwhile, is demanding more safety data and drugs are being advanced for smaller groups of patients--two key trends that will drive an increase in CROs' business. Drug developers will be put under ever-growing pressure to reduce costs, making outsourcing to companies like Quintiles even more attractive. And that will trigger growth in hiring at CROs as well.

Don't look for Quintiles to back off its global footprint, either. "We don't do anything different in India than we do in the U.S.," Gillings tells the newspaper. That may make Quintiles a little more expensive, but it also makes the data easier to defend.

- read more from the interview with the News & Observer

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