Your CRO Just Acquired Another CRO – Now What?

By Ed Miseta, Chief Editor, Clinical Leader

A year ago, Wendel Barr, CEO of CRO Synteract, was frustrated. His company was profitable, he had talented personnel, Synteract was managing a wide variety of projects, and his clients were satisfied with their level of service. Despite this success, his potential to grow the business was constrained. Synteract was a U.S.-based firm with limited presence overseas. As a result, his company often found itself forced to leave money on the table, especially as its customers moved to larger, Phase 3 trials. “It became clear to us that in order to provide the range of services our customers required, we had to have more offices in Europe, beyond our office in Prague,” he says. “If you want to be a full service provider from Phase 1 to Phase 4, you have to be global.”

With limited staff outside the U.S., Synteract was forced to partner with other CROs. The company sought out firms that had operations in the countries where it needed to operate. Synteract handled the project management while the CRO executed the required services. While that model was a fit for some clients, it was not acceptable for pharmaceutical firms that were about to invest tens of millions of dollars on a clinical trial. Synteract needed to resolve the issue, and Barr knew the solution. “We had to have a direct presence in the countries that had access to the patients and the monitoring,” he states. “There was no other way around that problem.”