NovaQuest, the investment arm of contract research organisation (CRO) Quintiles, has contributed to a private placement of $25m (€18.4m) in Topigen Pharmaceuticals. The Canadian biopharma company specialises in respiratory disease drugs and has had a working relationship with Quintiles for the past three years for the clinical development of its lead candidate, which is currently in Phase II. Quintiles - operating via NovaQuest - is one of the few CROs edging beyond traditional fee-for-service business model boundaries, and currently has drug discovery partnerships of varying degrees with over 35 companies, mainly in the US, including Eli Lilly. Quintiles benefits from the NovaQuest arrangements by providing development and project management services. Last year NovaQuest made 16 investments in emerging biotechs to the total tune of $342m, including in Canadian multiple sclerosis specialist firm, BioMS Medical. Commenting on the future, NovaQuest vice president Ben Cons said: "…our focus now is to create fewer but larger partnerships. We're seeking high potential biotechs - those with excellent pipelines and strong management teams". Meanwhile, the company is also sniffing around for deals in the Indian pharmaceutical market, which it expects to make a "significant contribution in the next five to ten years". In April, chairman and CEO of Quintiles, Dennis Gillings, said that although Indian drug development deals are not a primary focus for Quintiles, NovaQuest is already "in talks with a few companies" and is reviewing its options in the area. Meanwhile, US private equity firm WHI Capital Partners has made an undisclosed investment in US clinical trial services firm Clinical Research Network (CRN). CRN is in the business of training and managing healthcare providers on conducting clinical trials via home visits to patients to ensure all regulatory protocols are adhered to as strictly as they would be in a more traditional clinical setting. "By bringing clinical trials into patients' homes through the use of qualified and trained home healthcare providers, we have helped solve two of the biggest challenges in the clinical trial process: patient recruitment and retention," said Gail Adinamis, founder and CEO of CRN. The company claims its efforts have "translated into a reduction in patient recruitment time and an increase in the patient retention rate, in some cases by over 50 per cent and 95 per cent, respectively" and have also "created substantial value by saving development time and expense versus the traditional model of conducting investigator site visits". In other investment news, some of the senior management of British CRO Premier Research may be making a play for the company, having expressed a preliminary interest in putting in an offer for the firm and seeking permission from the board to explore the option. "There can be no guarantee that this approach will lead to an offer being made for the issued ordinary share capital of the company," the company said, however, in case of such an event, an independent review committee has now been formed by the board. Premier has been on a growth spurt over the past three years, having made six purchases, two of them in July, when it bought the business and assets of US firm ARS for $22.1m, primarily to expand its Oracle Clinical data management and database offerings and opportunities with in the US; and also snapped up D-Target, a Swiss CRO that specialises in clinical research and regulatory services for medical device, combination products and biologics products manufacturers, in a deal worth up to CHF17.0m (€10.3m). The financial results for Premier's year to 31 January 2007 saw total revenues jump during the period by 154 per cent to £41.8m (€61.6m) - with another of the firm's acquisitions, US CRO Scirex, generating £16.0m of this figure.
