Dive Brief:
- Quotient Clinical, which provides early-phase drug development services, said Feb. 14 it has acquired QS Pharma, a contract development and manufacturing company based near Philadelphia, from Charles River Laboratories International.
- Eight days earlier, UK-based Quotient announced its acquisition of SeaView Research, expanding its operations into the U.S. Florida-based SeaView is a specialist clinical pharmacology business.
- Quotient CEO Mark Egerton said the two U.S. acquisitions combined have increased the scale of Quotient’s business to 600-some employees, with annualized revenues approaching $100 million. Financial terms for both transactions were not disclosed.
Dive Insight:
Announcing its latest deal, Quotient said QS Pharma’s capability to work with high-potency molecules, which it described as a fast-growing market need, is of particular relevance.
QS Pharma isn’t the first acquisition from Charles River Labs for Quotient Clinical, whose competitors include Amura Holdings, MedPharm and Quay Pharma. The company's biometrics unit in Edinburgh, Scotland was purchased from Charles River Labs in 2009.
In 2013, Quotient Clinical was bought by a private equity firm, Bridgepoint Development Capital, separating from its parent organization, Quotient Bioresearch, in a move expected to facilitate its growth and increase its market penetration. In December 2015, Quotient Clinical was acquired by healthcare investor GHO Capital which is now supporting the development of the company.
Recently announcing the SeaView acquisition, Quotient CEO Egerton said the U.S. is a key strategic market since more than half of Quotient’s customers are based in the U.S. The deal will allow the company to offer customers the option to conduct their early-phase clinical research either in the U.K. or the U.S.
SeaView has 160 employees at two clinical pharmacology units in Miami and Jacksonville that have a combined bed capacity of 320. Quotient said each of the two facilities is able to handle complex clinical research studies including first-in-human investigations.
The U.S. acquisitions also pave the way for Quotient to replicate its Translational Pharmaceutics platform in the U.S. The company said its platform, which integrates clinical testing with formulation development and real-time GMP manufacturing, is being used by 100-plus pharma and biotech companies to speed product development.
QS Pharma Managing Director Nutan Gangrade said Quotient’s platform "will synergize with our core formulation development and manufacturing services. We have grown our business successfully on the basis of quality and speed, and will continue to do so as part of Quotient."