CommonHealth Celebrates Opening Of Paris Office The move is designed to allow CommonHealth to broaden its offerings to an increasingly global clientele. CommonHealth has opened an office in Paris. The move is designed to allow CommonHealth to broaden its offerings to an increasingly global clientele. The office serves as a hub, continuing to coordinate with long-standing WPP partner, Ogilvy Healthworld, to provide local points of presence throughout the rest of Europe, and newly emerging markets in Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America. “Our clients have awarded us substantial opportunities that resulted in achieving critical mass outside the United States, and we can foresee additional offices in the near future,” says Matt Giegerich, president and CEO of CommonHealth. “We have enjoyed a long and successful partnership with CommonHealth,” says Katie Piette, CommonHealth European account leader. “It was a natural step to help them continue to grow their European presence.” Ms. Piette and her team offer clients access to world-class creative, medical education, and public relations. Our clients have awarded us substantial opportunities that resulted in achieving critical mass outside the United States, and we can foresee additional offices in the near future, says Matt Giegerich, President and CEO of CommonHealth. We have enjoyed a long and successful partnership with CommonHealth, says Katie Piette, CommonHealth European Account Leader. HPI Launches Diversity Search Practice Responding to the growing need of many U.S.-based companies to build diverse management teams, Heritage Partners International (HPI) has launched its diversity practice focused on the life sciences. HPI has witnessed a consistent request for diversity-balanced candidates at the highest levels of executive management and in the boardroom. Long-time search veteran and HPI Partner Terri Angotto heads up the practice. Her years of experience and contacts ensure that the company delivers highly diverse slates of quality executives while remaining one of the top retained search firms in the life sciences. The practice was launched in direct response to requests from clients to identify and help attract senior level executive talent in the life sciences that mirrors the diversity of their customers and stakeholders. Clinsys Changes Name to Align With New Global Strategy and Growth Clinsys Inc. has changed its name to Clinsys Clinical Research Inc. to reflect a more focused corporate direction, clearly defined global strategy, and clinical operations capabilities. “To effectively meet the expectations of our sponsors, we have integrated our global operations under one platform giving us increased capabilities with greater efficiency and enhanced quality,” says David E. Williams, CEO. “We have expanded and grown beyond the company we were even a year ago, and we continue to build a client-focused organization with an enhanced service offering and a therapeutically focused direction. “Our company branding must evolve to clearly communicate these changes along with our commitment to our sponsors’ success,” Mr. Williams continues. “We are changing the name to Clinsys Clinical Research to reflect our corporate heritage and our new capabilities.” The name now embodies the synergistic role of the company’s global business groups in providing the right solutions for our sponsors in all phases of the drug-development process. The company continues to extend its global reach and to expand in key therapeutic areas of oncology, cardiovascular, central nervous system, dermatology, respiratory, and allergy/immunology. To support its evolving global strategy and growth, key management assignments are being made, including the appointment of Ferrell Drewry as chief information officer and VP, biometrics, Greg Dodds as senior director, business development, and Karen Raudibaugh as senior director, Phase I and early clinical development. Jeff Worthington, a noted expert in pharmaceutical sensory analysis and formulation development, has launched a new company — Senopsys. Senopsys partners with drug developers and CROs to evaluate the palatability of drug products and create formulations that are acceptable to patients. Improving taste, aroma, texture, and mouth feel of drugs enhances patient acceptability, compliance, health outcomes, and product sales. According to Mr. Worthington, a drug’s palatability is much more complicated than its flavor. He says the key lies beneath the surface and includes factors such as balancing the four basic tastes — sweet, sour, salty, and bitter — building blend and body, extending the aftertaste duration, and adding beneficial mouth feel factors. Senopsys applies its knowledge of flavor construction, excipient functionality, and processing technology to develop formulations for both traditional and novel dosage forms of investigational and approved drugs that meet the needs of specific patient populations. Senopsys Making Pharmaceuticals More Palatable What’s New on the Shelves BBK’s founding principals, Joan F. Bachenheimer and Bonnie A. Brescia’s, new patient recruitment guidebook book, Reinventing Patient Recruitment: Revolutionary Ideas for Clinical Trial Success, includes a plethora of useful information for accelerating patient recruitment gained during 23 years in the industry. The book, published by Gower, is presented in a straightforward, non-academic style. It is a valuable resource for life-science companies’ patient-recruitment centers of excellence and for anyone concerned with on-time, on-budget enrollment. The book is a companion to BBK’s latest innovation, TCN e-Systems, powerful e-business toolkits. The knowledge presented in the book and the Web-based tools are designed to streamline the patient-recruitment process and help sponsors meet or beat study timelines. Some of the topics the authors discuss include enrollment projection metrics, site selection, budgeting and contracting, and patient protections. An entire section is devoted to patient-recruitment practices for multinational studies, which includes topics such as targeting patients, patient retention, multinational clinical studies, and country selection. For more information, visit bbkworldwide.com. M&A Activity Biogen Idec, Cambridge, Mass., a global company that develops, manufactures, and commercializes novel therapies, has signed a definitive acquisition agreement with Syntonix Pharmaceuticals, a privately held biopharmaceutical company. Upon completion, in the first quarter of 2007, Biogen Idec will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of the capital stock of Syntonix for $40 million, payable at closing, and potential additional payments of up to $80 million upon the achievement of certain development milestones. For more information, visit biogenidec.com. Bridge Pharmaceuticals, a global CRO with headquarters in San Francisco, has completed the sale of is preclinical division to Gene Logic Inc., a drug repositioning, genomics products, software, and services company located in Gaithersburg, Md. The purchase price was $15 million. For more information, visit genelogic.com. GlaxoSmithkline Plc., London, a worldwide research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare company, has issued a cash tender offer for biopharmaceutical company, Praecis Pharmaceuticals Inc., Waltham, Mass. The acquisition cost is about $54.8 million. For more information, visit gsk.com. Grey Healthcare Group, New York, a worldwide healthcare communications network, has acquired a majority stake in Comunicacion y Servicio Consultores de Marketing Publicidad SL based in Madrid, Spain. The acquisition expands GHG’s European presence and adds a level of expertise to the company’s integrated global network. For more information, visit ghgroup.com. IMS Health, Fairfield, Conn., a global provider of market intelligence to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, has acquired Boston-based Strategic Decisions Group’s life-sciences practice. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. For more information, visit imshealth.com. Merck & Co. Inc., a global research-driven pharmaceutical company, with headquarters in Whitehouse Station, N.J., has successfully completed the acquisition of Sirna Therapeutics Inc., San Francisco. Merck acquired Sirna at a price of $13.00 per share in cash, for an aggregate equity purchase price of about $1.1 billion. For more information, visit merck.com. OnSphere has become TAKE Solutions Inc., a technology-enabled business solutions company based in Princeton, N.J. The new corporate identity is the result of the 2006 merger between TAKE Solutions and OnSphere. For more information, visit takesolutions.com. Follow up Clinsys Clinical Research Inc., Berkeley Heights, N.J., is a therapeutically focused clinical research organization that offers pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies a broad range of clinical-research services in support of Phase I-IV drug-development: project management, medical and clinical monitoring, patient recruitment, site management, biostatistics, data management, drug safety, quality assurance, regulatory affairs, and medical writing services. For more information visit clinsyscro.com. CommonHealth, Parsippany, N.J., is a network of highly specialized healthcare marketing companies. For more information, visit commonhealth.com. Heritage Partners International (HPI), New Haven, Conn., is a multinational retained consulting firm focused on solving its life-science clients’ human capital challenges at a senior level. For more information, visit heritageleaders.com. Senopsys LLC, Saugus, Mass., is a specialty services company dedicated to the development of palatable pharmaceuticals. For more information, visit senopsys.com.
