Income from operation also jumped 70 per cent on the same time last year, to $13.9 million.
">Ventiv's very positive third quarter results underscore our strong market positioning and continued effective execution across all of our businesses," said CEO Eran Broshy.
The company's commercial services arm, which provides outsourced sales teams, compliance and patient assistance programs, and sample and literature fulfillment, was particularly successful, reporting a 10 per cent revenue increase from the third quarter of 2004 to $98 million.
The company attributes this jump in revenue to winning several new contracts and a strong performance by the segment's patient assistance programs.
The new contracts include seven patient assistance programs and two Medicare part D education programs from The Franklin Group, three sales teams contracts with mid-tier clients, three planning and analytics contracts from Health Products Research and one total data solutions contract.
The third quarter also saw the completion of the acquisition of Pharmaceutical Resource Solutions, (PRS), which the company said will strengthen its compliance management and marketing support capabilities in its commercial services unit.
The strategic acquisition of inChord Communications, previously the world's largest independently-owned healthcare marketing and communications company, was also announced during the third quarter and closed during the fourth quarter.
This acquisition adds a pharmaceutical advertising, branding and marketing business to Ventiv's sales team, awell as planning and analytics, compliance management, clinical staffing and data management businesses.
"This acquisition adds a whole new dimension to our business model and significantly enhances Ventiv's resources for providing a full range of sales and marketing services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, including 18 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies," said Broshy.
Ventiv is now increasing its 2005 revenue guidance from $505-$515 million to $525-$530 million, due to this acquisition and to stronger than expected performance in Ventiv's businesses.