Would you invest in a public Quintiles?

In recent weeks Reuters​ and Bloomberg​ have reported that Quintiles has chosen the banks that will launch its IPO but, sadly as we’re not familiar with the nameless ‘people familiar with the matter​’ cited by both newswires, the stories have proved impossible to confirm.

When Outsourcing-pharma.com put the rumours to Quintiles​ spokesman Phil Bridges told us – very politely given he’d probably been fielding such questions all day – the firm does not comment on speculation.

And when we asked TPG Capital, one of several private equity groups that owns a stake in Quintiles, we were told “no comment” and advised to contact the contract research organisation (CRO) for more information. So another dead end.

In a final attempt to confirm the rumours we asked Cadiome – a Canadian biopharma that outsourced post-market testing and regulatory affairs support for Brinavess (vernakalant) to Quintiles last week – if it had heard anything. Sadly, however, the firm did not respond.

So rather than repeat unconfirmed rumours or make up our own theories about Quintiles’ future – our money is on a takeover by Lord Lucan, Elvis and Shergar but don’t quote us on that – we decided to see what information the world’s largest CRO has make public.

History​

Global reach​

Quintiles’ business is built around its offering in Phase I to IV trial, observational research, market access, IT and outsourced sales services. The firm claims to have helped customers develop 50 of the world’s best-selling drugs.

The CRO employs around 27,000 people worldwide in 80 countries including, in addition to North America and Europe, the following emerging markets:

Africa​: Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Egypt where it claims to have been involved in 250 trials and enrolled 10, 000 patients between 2004 and 2010.

Asia​: China, Indonesia, India and Japan where it has run 500 plus trials since 2004 involving as many as 50,000 patients.

Oceania​: New Zealand and Australia where it has offered central lab, clinical project management services and regulatory support since 1993.

Latin America​: Colombian, Chile, Peru and Brazil where it claims to have enrolled more than 25,000 patients since 2004.

Reader Poll​

So the question – with all this in mind – is would you invest in Quintiles if it does launch an IPO later this year?