The executive shake-up following the formation of QuintilesIMS last month continues, with the appointment of CRO veteran Richard Staub as president of the firm's R&D solutions division.
Staub—who is currently president of QuintilesIMS' Novella Clinical subsidiary—is stepping into position vacated by Tom Pike, former CEO of Quintiles who has announced his retirement from the clinical development and healthcare data specialist.
R&D solutions is the division that grew out of Quintiles' legacy product development operation, including its contract clinical research activities which were bolstered earlier this month by the acquisition of the clinical trials division of TKL Research. Selected information services from IMS, designed to improve investigator site identification and patient recruitment, have been bundled into the division's offering.
The management reshuffle will also see the return of Paul Spreen, formerly president of the customers solutions management group at pre-merger Quintiles. Spreen has been named executive vice president and chief customer officer of the combined company.
QuintilesIMS' chair and CEO Ari Bousbib, who was head of IMS Health before the merger, said he was "really excited by our opportunity to lead the evolution of the CRO industry and am confident Richard and his world-class management team from R&D solutions are poised to drive that change."
QuintilesIMS said recently it expects to double its initial forecast for cost savings as a result of the merger to $200 million a year by 2019, and reckons it is already seeing the benefit of being able to offer services across the clinical, scientific and commercial spectrum.
"We won three significant multiyear deals with top-10 pharma clients within the first month of closing the merger on the back of our combined capabilities and joint offering," said Bousbib.
Last week, the company also announced a collaborative initiative with Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Merck KGaA and Pfizer to use real-world data to assess how cancer treatments are being used in Europe.