QuintilesIMS now IQVIA as it aims to ‘outpace the inevitable progress of change’

By Melissa Fassbender

- Last updated on GMT

(Image: Getty/liuzishan)
(Image: Getty/liuzishan)

Related tags Venture capital

QuintilesIMS next week will officially be rebranded as IQVIA – the newest name in the “Mega-CRO” category created by the rapid and ubiquitous consolidation of the industry.

Equity shares of QuintilesIMS will trade on the NYSE under its new name, IQVIA, and new ticker symbol “IQV” beginning next week.

The name change follows the majority completion of Quintiles/IMS Health integration activates, an IQVIA spokesperson told us. Now, the company is ready to “refocus its attention outward and introduce a new brand to the market.​”

Our new brand sends a clear signal to our clients that we are committed to harnessing advances in technology, analytics and human ingenuity and deliver solutions that will help them innovate with confidence and drive healthcare forward​,” the spokesperson added.

Our vision is to outpace the inevitable progress of change across the life sciences and accelerate our ability to empower healthcare decision makers to meet the future head on​.”

By any other name: The “Mega-CRO”

IMS Health and Quintiles announced the merger in May of last year​, creating one of the world’s largest healthcare information portfolios. Following the announcement, Andrew Schafer, president of Industry Standard Research (ISR) explained​ that the integration​ of both companies’ data would be one of the key success factors of the merge.

Schafer also predicted the pace of change in the CRO industry​ would only increase, with additional mega-mergers rumored. Almost exactly a year later, INC Research and inVentiv announced their merger​, creating one of the largest biopharmaceutical outsourcing providers, and a “top three CRO​,” INC Research CEO Alistair Macdonald told us at the time.

Also this year, Covance acquired Chiltern​ and Parexel was purchased​ by the private equity firm, Pamplona Capital.

In an overview of the CRO market​, Jason Monteleone – now the CEO of Clinipace Worldwide​ – explained that this myriad M&A activity has created a new category of CROs: “Mega,” among them Covance-LabCorp, inVentiv-INC Research, PPD, and QuintilesIMS, which we now know as IQVIA.

The next mega CRO? Monteleone said that “right when you think you know what is coming next, the opposite occurs​” – though a continued interest from private equity​ and an increasing demand for outsourcing​ should keep things interesting.

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