New CRO Celerion rises out of MDS divestment
pharmafile | April 1, 2010 | News story | Research and Development |Â Â Celerion, mdsÂ
Celerion has completed the acquisition of MDS Pharma Services’ early-stage development and regulatory services business, marking the latter’s exit from the contract research business.
US-based Celerion was set up with the backing of two private equity firms – Bain Capital Ventures and SV Life Sciences – specifically to operate the acquired MDS business units.
The acquisition includes five clinical research facilities and two bioanalytical laboratories located in the US, Switzerland and Northern Ireland, as well as US and Canadian offices. The new company will be run out of a facility Lincoln, Nebraska, which houses both early-stage clinical research and bioanalytic units.
“With over 700 beds worldwide, Celerion is an industry leader in the conduct of early clinical research, including first-in-man to proof-of-concept clinical studies, clinical pharmacology, bioequivalence trials, bioanalysis, and cardiac safety services,” said the new CRO in a statement.
The new company’s chief executive is Dr Susan Thornton, who previously served as chief executive of healthcare advisory services company BioVerum Partners.
Prior to that Thornton served as president of the global late stage clinical and central laboratory business for MDS Pharma Services, and has also held a number of drug development roles at GlaxoSmithKline and Merck & Co.
MDS Pharma Services’ parent company MDS Inc has been steadily divesting all of its contract research businesses in order to concentrate on its MDS Nordion business, which makes radioactive isotopes for medical applications and sterilisation technologies.
The discovery and preclinical operations, including facilities in the US, France and Taiwan, were taken over by contract research organisation Ricerca Biosciences earlier this year.
In May 2009 MDS sold its late-stage clinical operations to INC Research, and the following October hived off its central laboratory business to Czura Thornton, the parent company of contract research organisation Chiltern International.
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