Spanish CRO Pivotal is buying up patient engagement, recruitment and retention firm Akcelis.
The Belgium-based clinical research specialist will be integrated into its parent, creating a new patient enrollment model that will “accelerate drug development by supporting patient recruitment for clinical trials,” according to their joint statement.
The aim is to help widen that well-known clinical trial “bottleneck” in getting patients into trials and keeping them there to collect those all-important data. Pivotal says its Akcelis buy, financials of which are not being divulged, will allow it to “recruit and retain a unique patient population for difficult-to-recruit trials.”
It does this via its analytics platform and manages the patient recruitment life cycle from recruitment to enrollment to retention. It already has service deals with a number of biopharmas.
“This acquisition fits perfectly with our commitment to bringing innovation to the clinical development process to deliver efficiencies for our clients,” said Lidia Farr, VP, corporate development and finance at Pivotal.
“Akcelis will bring advanced, proprietary and analytics-driven technology and services to customize the most efficient and cost-effective approach to significantly improve site selection and patient enrollment and retention strategies for our clients´ clinical trials. As we focus on delivering this value for our customers, we are pleased to welcome our new colleagues to Pivotal to become part of our solution-oriented culture and help advance drug development to improve patient lives.”
“Pivotal’s expertise in clinical research and Akcelis’ patient-centric approach to accelerate patient recruitment are the winning combination for scientifically elegant and patient-friendly clinical trials,” added Barbara D’haene and Nathalie Niclaus, Akcelis managing directors and co-founders. “We look forward to positively impacting Pivotal’s clinical research excellence by implementing innovative digital patient recruitment strategies.”