Quotient consolidates its growing business

The UK analytical and safety evaluation services firm said that HFL, GR Micro and BioDynamics Research will from now on be grouped together under the company name of Quotient Bioresearch, with the parent company of the group being renamed as Quotient Bioscience. Paul Cowan, chairman and CEO of Quotient Bioscience, said: "Since acquiring GR Micro, HFL and BioDynamics, Quotient has made excellent progress in integrating the businesses and expanding the service offering of the group​". As a result, Quotient Bioresearch has rapidly become one of Europe's leading drug development services groups and we now wish to extend that market position through further synergistic acquisitions that build on our skillbase and expand our customer offering. The company is interested in complimentary businesses in Europe and North America and plans to make up to three more purchases over the next 18 months. In January last year Quotient BioResearch was born. The UK start up company was formed with ambitions to shape itself into a global early-phase drug development services group through an acquisition-based strategy. Three weeks later in February 2007 the enterprise announced its first purchase in the form of UK drug development services company HFL, whose capabilities included bioanalysis, biomarker research, pharmaceutical analysis and clinical laboratory services. The company also had a sports forensic testing division. Later in September it also gained UK-based GR Micro, a provider of microbiology and molecular biology services with a particular emphasis on new antibiotic development. In February this year BioDynamics - a specialist provider of metabolism, bioanalytical and radiochemistry services to the global biopharma industry - became the third acquisition that Quotient has made in the drug development services sector over the past 16 months since its inception. As it gathers more companies under its umbrella, Quotient will effectively operate as a contract research organisation (CRO) focused on the early phases of drug discovery, from bioanalytical testing to Phase I clinical services. The early-phase corner of the CRO market is a natural focus for Quotient because company CEO, Cowan, is the former CFO of Inveresk Research Group - a CRO specialising in the same area - that eventually merged with global early-phase heavyweight Charles River Laboratories in 2004. In addition, Cowan told Outsourcing-Pharma.com at the time of the first acquisition that early-phase services were chosen because "this area has a record of strong profitability and growth and there are high barriers to entry due to the specialisation required​." Cowan also said that he envisioned that each acquired business still operating as an individual entity, with a "limited amount of integration, with the sharing of best-practices, knowledge and know-how​", although it seems with the absorbtion of the businesses under the Quotient Bioscience brand, plans have now changed. As part of the recent company reshuffle, the sports testing and research business acquired with the purcase of HFL will now trade as HFL Sport Science and Alba Bioscience, the diagnostics reagents business of Quotient Bioscience, will continue to trade as Alba Bioscience.