As contract research organization consolidation continues, one of the oldest CROs, Parexel, has made a deal to shore up its informatics business, boosting its ability to provide regulatory software services to its biopharmaceutiucal clientele.
Boston-based Parexel‘s (NASDAQ: PRXL) acquisition of Horsham, Pennsylvania-based Liquent from private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners gives it a flagship software platform and with it, access to comprehensive regulatory agency submission planning, tracking and registration management for medicinal entities. In a company statement, Parexel added that it would also help its consulting and medical communications service arm.
In an interview with Investors Business Daily, Parexel CEO Joself Von Rickenbach said its informatics business has been a pioneer in clinical research:
“We are solving many of the problems for our space that eventually need to be solved for the broader health care world… Most clinical trials have multiple technologies now involved. For instance, another technology of note would be the randomization and trial supply technology. That’s both a technology that randomizes patients in real time, but also de facto rules the entire logistics chain of an experimental drug — from the manufacturing side all the way to the site, and back to the lab as well.”
Although CROs have been going through a great deal of consolidation in the past couple of years, there is also a certain amount of competition to ensure they have the software capabilities to best serve their biopharmaceutical clientele — as companies make greater use of innovative technology to improve clinical trial efficiencies. That includes delivering regulatory documents in different geographies to providing communication tools for transmitting information between clinical trial sites, the manufacturers and the regulators. Since Parexel was formed in 1982, it’s acquired at least 24 companies.
