Pharmaceutical contract services round-up
Outsourcing-Pharma takes a look at deals recently inked by Yoh,
PDI, and PRA International.
Recruitment outsourcing company Yoh has acquired Sci-Tek Professionals, a small US-based clinical staffing firm in a bid to expand its clinical and scientific recruitment services to the pharma industry. "Hiring managers in pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device markets are in a war for talent," said Bill Yoh, CEO of Yoh, a unit of Day & Zimmermann. "The strategic acquisition of Sci-Tek furthers our focus on providing superior talent services to companies in these markets, and offering specialised services in the increasingly competitive clinical research and scientific segments." Meanwhile, sales and marketing services provider PDI has launched 'PDI On Demand', a new portfolio of expanded services in a bid to diversify its business by offering services beyond sales. The US-based firm, who is keen to provide pharma companies with new customised services, said it has introduced a new solution that will allow pharma clients to manage temporary vacancies and continue physician service during times of absence. "Territory vacancies due to temporary leaves of absence can create service gaps for critical physicians, sales force disruption as managers try to reshuffle resources, and inevitably, lost revenue as competitors make inroads in high-value territories. We are very excited to launch a service that directly addresses these difficult challenges," said Michael Marquard, CEO of PDI. The company recently announced that it has signed a contract with a "top 10" pharmaceutical company. The one-year deal, which began last week, is expected to bring PDI $13m (€9.7m) in revenue. This comes on the heels of PDI's announcement a week earlier that it will soon lose a $35m annual sales contract with an undisclosed client. In other news, contract research organisation (CRO) PRA International has announced it has entered into an exclusive licensing deal with IntrinsiQ Research to use the firm's electronic medical record software, which could potentially help PRA plan more efficient oncology clinical trials. IntrinsiQ's Intellidose technology is used to manage oncology patients in the US and the company collects real-time, longitudinal data on more than 45,000 treatments for several types of cancer each month from over 600 oncology physicians. The data can be used to precisely forecast patient recruitment, thus accelerating the pace of clinical trials, the firm claims. "Access to the IntrinsiQ Research data, combined with our recently announced alliance with US Oncology, reinforces our leadership position in oncology clinical research," said Kent Thoelke, senior vice president, Therapeutic Expertise, at PRA. "PRA is using the data from IntrinsiQ Research to accurately predict patient enrollment for clinical trials in oncology and we have already demonstrated the benefits to several sponsors by exceeding their expectations for patient recruitment timelines and budgets." According to IntrinsiQ, its oncology data is the established industry benchmark, and is used by 90 percent of the pharmaceutical companies in the US, as well as industry analysts. "This agreement with PRA allows us to extend our leadership position into the contract research space," said Jeff Forringer, general manager of IntrinsiQ's pharmaceutical division.
