Three companies combine to form consulting CRO

The three companies that united to launch the contract research organization (CRO) are emotive, Initiate, and Genactis, all focused on supporting healthcare providers overcome challenges faced across different sectors of the industry.

Based in London, UK, and Boston, US, emotive is a communications agency working on medical affairs and commercial activities, as well as creating communication strategies to help healthcare providers engage with patients suffering mainly from rare disorders and cancer.

Initiate was established as a market access and strategy consultancy in 2019​ by emotive in collaboration with two other agencies, in order to assist healthcare providers engage with payers and sponsors involved in reimbursement, working mostly on the fields of rare and life-limiting disorders.

Finally, Genactis is a market research consultancy providing insights to clients in life sciences, leveraging a team of physicians and its informatics capabilities, and focusing as well on oncology and rare disorders.

The three founding partners will continue to operate individually whilst concurrently providing joint support to Synaptiq Health, which aims to provide drug developers with services regarding market insights, engagement and access.

Asked about the market demand that drove the establishment of the new company, Chris Edmonds, who is taking the role of CEO, told us that existing clients of the three partners were showing ‘overwhelming’ interest in such a launch.

“In 2019, we had already started working jointly with some clients who recognized the value of having a single provider group who could work with them on insight generation and communications to all stakeholders; prescriber, patient and payer, in an integrated and joined up manner,”​ Edmonds said.

According to the executive, this concept is mainly successful with small biopharma companies who have ‘tightly aligned’ and ‘resource-light’ teams.

This demand led the partners to ‘formalize’ the collaborative work under one company, in order to be able to demonstrate the integrated proposition and offer physical presence.

Synaptiq’s CEO told us that the newly-launched company has already had ‘a number of new enquiries’ from clients, as well as one formal proposal request.

Concurrently with its launch, the company announced ‘ambitious’ growth plans and stated that it is also in talks with other potential partners willing to join the collection and provide additional complementary services to clients.