Velocity Fund Partners clearly has big plans for its newly acquired and relaunched CRO InClinica. Since the acquisition was announced in August, InClinica has been in a restless hiring mood, appointing three regional VPs of business development in the U.S. and Europe.
The Wayne, PA-based CRO, previously known as Indipharm, is adding Bryan Jobe, Paul Steinberg and Phillip Meister as VP of business development for the U.S. East Coast, the U.S. West Coast, and the U.K. and EU operations, respectively, as part of its recent effort to grow a more prominent presence in the international CRO market.
All three joined the company with much experience in the life sciences industry: Jobe, who was the senior director of business development with Worldwide Clinical Trials, brings more than 14 years of experience in the CRO field; Steinberg was president of Eckert & Ziegler Vitalea Science, a provider of accelerator mass spectrometry services; and Meister, bringing more than 20 years of experience, was previously the VP of sales for Medidata.
With a focus on promising life sciences opportunities, the Pittsburgh, PA-based PE firm Velocity Fund Partners, which is itself a newly-born founded by healthcare industry vet Ken Melani and pharma leader Jim Nolan, bought the CRO in sync with the launch of the PE firm in August and immediately set it on an expansion spree.
Close on the heels of the relaunch, the CRO recruited Thomas Morris, former senior medical director of oncology at AstraZeneca, as its medical director for the company’s European operations. In October, it announced the new Asia-Pacific headquarters based in Kuala Lumpur, along with a subsidiary company, IC LifeSciences. Besides the U.S., the U.K. and Malaysia, the CRO also has an office in Israel. Services it focuses on span all phases of the clinical research process, and first-in-man and Phase II studies are its strength.