Some highly publicized acquisitions include Quintiles' November 1996 purchase of Innovex, a contract pharmaceutical sales force, for 9.2 million shares of Quintiles stock, and options to purchase an additional 800,000 shares in a pooling of interests transaction. In June 1997, the company acquired all of Medical Action Communications' stock for approximately 566,000 shares of Quintiles stock, and in the same month, Quintiles acquired Butler Communications Inc. for 214,000 shares. The company includes Butler Clinical Recruitment Service, a firm which uses a broad array of media to accelerate patient recruitment. The year started with the purchase of Belmont Research, a data visualization and data management software company. To improve its ability to conduct pharmacoeconomic and outcomes research, ClinTrials Research acquired Ovation Healthcare Research in June 1997.
Ovation is a privately held pharmacoeconomic research and consulting company.
Several financial analysts believe that over the next several years we will see, among major CROs, greater divestiture activity than that of diversification. He adds that today, PPD Pharmaco and Quintiles are the only two pursuing intense diversification strategies beyond the traditional CR0 services. Niche players are vulnerable to technology process changes that could radically alter the need for their services, i.e. if electronic patient records and automated data collection become standard, the need for niche players offering these services may decline. As sponsors seek to conduct global trials, CROs are positioning themselves to gain access to populations in emerging markets such as Israel, Russia, Latin America, China, and India. As emerging economies develop, more countries will be able to afford medications that can control disease cost-effectively.