CRO

RxCelerate acquires bioanalysis CRO Total Scientific

RxCelerate has absorbed the services and staff of Total Scientific, a CRO focused in bioanalysis, protein assays and gene-phenotype association.

The acquisition includes retiring Total Scientific’s brand and adding the company’s 11 employees to RxCelerate’s, bringing its total to 37. Existing clients should see no changes in the delivery of their products, the company said in a statement. Financial details were not disclosed.

“Total Scientific was the first company in the world to offer phenome-wide association studies (PheWAS) as a commercial service, underpinning their status as global leaders in highly specialized bioanalysis,” said RxCelerate CEO Jill Reckless, citing the chance to offer this capability to the company’s clients. RxCelerate focuses on outsourced drug discovery and development.

Total Scientific, founded in Cambridge, U.K., in 2006, describes PheWAS as the inverse of genome-wide association studies investigating the association between a single genetic variation with a wide range of phenotypes, such as through electronic health records or other rich datasets, instead of analyzing connections between thousands of gene changes and a single observable trait.

Meanwhile, Total Scientific founder and chief scientist David Mosedale said the opportunity to become part of RxCelerate’s global reach was “simply too good to pass up.”

Last November, the Cambridge, U.K.-based RxCelerate opened a new office—this time in Cambridge, Massachusetts—in its first global move. There, U.S. operations are led by Executive VP Laura Hamilton, who was brought in from overseeing sales and business development at the local trade association, MassBio.