The agreement - financial terms of which were not disclosed - will see Bioclinica – which is owned by JLL Partners and Ampersand Capital Partners – combine with imaging services firm CCBR-Synarc, which was acquired by Water Street last April.
A spokeswoman for Water Street told Outsourcing-pharma.com that: "Water Street, JLL and Ampersand will all have ownership positions in the merged business. By bringing their companies together, CCBR-SYNARC and BioClinica will offer customers a comprehensive suite of services specializing in increasing the speed and efficiency of global clinical trials.
She added that: "CCBR-SYNARC will add patient recruitment services and medical imaging for the neurology and musculoskeletal therapeutic areas to BioClinica. BioClinica will bring to CCBR-SYNARC medical imaging services for oncology, as well as consulting services and technology to support the overall drug development process. The integration process is underway and the transaction is expected to close by the end of the first quarter."
In a statement issued today the firms said: “This merger comes at a time when demand for outsourced pharmaceutical services isprojected to grow more than five percent per year over the next five years."
CCBR-Synarc is composed of two companies. California, US-headquartered Synarc provides trial imaging services, while Denmark-based CCBR focuses on patient recruitment.
The addition of CCBR-Synarc's medical imaging capabilities to Bioclinica's exisiting offering is in keeping with JLLs decision to merge the firm with CoreLab, which it also acquired in January 2012.
Jeffrey McMullen, vice chairman of inVentiv Health, has been appointed chairman of the merged company
Expansion
BioClinica CEO Mark Weinstein - who will lead the new merged organisation - has been an advocate of expanding the firm's offoring through bolt on acqusitions over the last few years.
In 2012 he told Outsourcing-Pharma.com that: “There are many facets of the clinical development process and we are always looking to be acquisitive for systems and services that would be additive to what we have today.”
“As we implement a truly unified clinical development platform there will definitely be pieces that we can add, but with that said, we believe we have the core components now and will continue to be focused on driving results for our customers,” he said. “It is a good situation to be in."