London, UK – Global Healthcare Opportunities, or GHO Capital Partners LLP (“GHO”), the European specialist investor in global healthcare, acknowledges the announcement from its portfolio company Velocity Clinical Research, regarding its acquisition of Meridian Clinical Research.
Velocity Clinical Research (“Velocity”), the leading integrated research site organisation, today announces its acquisition of Meridian Clinical Research for an undisclosed amount. The deal makes Velocity the largest dedicated research site organisation in the world with approximately 80 sites in the US and Europe, and a tech hub in Hyderabad, India.
Meridian is a multi-specialty site organisation for Phase I-IV clinical trials. As a result of this acquisition, Velocity will have sites in 25 US states, employing over 1,500 clinical research professionals.
Dr. Paul Evans, President and Chief Executive of Velocity said, “Having admired Nicole Osborn and the Meridian team’s approach to clinical research for some time now, I am particularly pleased to welcome them to Velocity. The combination of two of the best businesses in this sector moves the needle for clients, changing the relationship from transactional to strategic.
A multi-site business of our size means biopharma and Clinical Research Organizations can circumvent the individual site-selection process, dramatically reducing the time needed to activate sites and recruit patients, which speeds up drug development.”
Velocity’s integrated model reduces the site selection process by 6-8 months. Consequently, Sponsors and Clinical Research Organisations (CRO) have additional foresight and planning time to resource, activate, recruit and deliver clinical trials. Post acquisition, the company will have in excess of one million patients in its database to tap for future studies and provide data to better inform protocol design.
Velocity will continue to make significant investment into technology, driving superior site performance in terms of patient recruitment and engagement, and create tools needed for decentralised trials, which is growing in importance.
Nicole Osborn, who founded Meridian in 1999 will stay with the company to ensure a smooth integration before stepping back from day-to-day management, said, “I am very proud of the company my team and I have built. Meridian has played a major role in drug development that communities across the globe rely upon today, including as a premier site network in the development of COVID-19 vaccines. I’d like to pay tribute to the entire Meridian workforce who have helped to make us the outstanding organization that Velocity is acquiring today.”
Velocity’s sites are fully integrated via a centralised infrastructure and common technology backbone, allowing for superior patient enrollment and consistent, high-quality data delivery. As a result, CROs and biopharma companies can benefit from simplified access to international clinical research.
Since GHO’s investment in 2021, when Velocity had 14 sites, the clinical trials space has seen a number of entrants ranging from small individual funds to large global firms.