AWAC, RecipharmCobra Biologics and O2h rebrand

12-Oct-2011 - Last updated on 13-Oct-2011 at 07:15 GMT

Rebranding seems to be in vougue in the pharmaceutical services sector this month, with three firms changing their monikers.

First up is health claim review services firm AWAC which has relaunched under a new name – inVentiv Medical Management - designed to better reflect is offering according to the company.

AWAC was bought by inVentiv Health in 2007 for $75m (€54m) as part of the contract services firm’s effort to broaden its offering beyond clinical research into medical record management.

Since then AWAC has slowly expanded its client base, adding US insurer Health Alliance Medical Plans as a customer in 2009.

Contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) RecipharmCobra Biologics AB has also been renamed and will now operate as Cobra Biologics.

The rebranding follows a few months after former owner, Swedish CMO Recipharma AB, sold its shares in Cobra to the firm's management team after deciding to cease direct involvement in contract biologics manufacturing.

At the time Thomas Eldered, CEO of Recipharm AB said: “Following a strategic review we have decided to concentrate resources on our core business of pharmaceutical development and commercial manufacturing services for the time being.

He went on to say that contract biologics development is still an important business and added that “this transaction will allow us to both retain a stake in and maintain close links with Cobra Biologics."

Finally in today’s rebranding round-up is India’s Piramal Pharma Solutions.

The company has changed the name of O2h, the UK-based discovery chemistry and absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination (ADME) services firm it bought in February this year, to Piramal Discovery Solutions.

Sunil Shah, CEO of the Piramal unit, said the rebranding “reflects the aim of the group to be a fully integrated service provider to those that discover and develop new small molecule drugs for the treatment of disease."