Wheeling and dealing its way around the globe, Quintiles has snapped up a genomics testing operation in its own back yard in North Carolina to help keep up with the revolution underway in the development of personalized medicines. The multinational CRO has acquired Research Triangle Park-based Expression Analysis, a genomics services outfit with 77 employees.
A better understanding of genomics and diagnostics work is growing increasingly important to the drug developers Quintiles serves, especially as regulators and payers alike press for new drugs carefully aimed at a genetically delineated patient group. Now Expression Analysis--to be dubbed EA--will come on board at the CRO to help with gene sequencing, gene expression and genotyping assays.
"Its expertise in genetic sequencing and advanced bioinformatics is essential to understanding diseases and drugs at the molecular level," noted Thomas Wollman, a senior vice president at Quintiles Global Laboratories. "That's a huge step in creating more value across the healthcare spectrum."
Executives for Quintiles told the News & Observer that the EA staff will expand following the deal as the CRO continues to beef up operations in a battle for more market share. In recent months Quintiles has completed a string of buyouts, including the acquisition of Oxford Cancer Biomarkers along with Advion, a lab in upstate New York which does mass spectrometry and chemical synthesis work.
EA was spun out of Duke 11 years ago. The buyout terms were not disclosed.
- here's the press release
- read the story from the News & Observer