The CRO Market Consolidates –

Summer’s Hot for Clinical Research Organizations
It’s been about four years, but merger and acquisition activity in the clinical research organization (CRO) market is picking up steam. Since January 2013, at least 11 transactions directly involving a CRO have been announced, compared with eight in all of 2012. Several more transactions, involving more ancillary forms of pharmaceutical and biotechnology research, have also been made public.
If even a handful of these deals came with prices (which they did not), the combined total would be in the billions, not merely millions.
“There’s a massive consolidation taking place, which is natural because it’s really a fragmented sector that’s overdue to be rolled up,” said Jim Hesburgh, managing director at Duff & Phelps. “Like so many other healthcare services sectors, this is one that had not been as consolidated, and its time has come.”
Take the June 24 announcement that KKR (NYSE: KKR) agreed to purchase PRA International, a global CRO that was taken private in 2007 by Genstar Capital LLC. Although terms of the KKR acquisition were not…..Want to read more? Click here for a free trial to The Health Care M&A Information Source and download the current issue today