CRO M&As Show No Sign of Slowing Down

With all of the activity in CRO M&As the past three years, it’s slightly amazing that it continues - and that analysts don’t see it slowing down. In fact, investment analysts speaking to the Partnerships in Clinical Trials event this month believe that from a Wall Street perspective, the publicly-traded CROs are heading into a three-year bull market. And from an investment perspective, these firms have delivered a 900% return to investors, said Eric Coldwell, Analyst for Robert W. Baird.

On the first day of the conference, ICON announced that it had acquired Aptiv Solutions, on the slight heels of private equity firm Cinven acquiring Medpace in late February, and the late summer 2013 stunners: PRA taking on RPS and Quintiles purchasing Novella Clinical after its return to the publicly-traded world in May. Other privately held CROs, which would not be on this list include Catalent, Cato Research, INC Research, and inVentiv Health.

And yet, the analysts gathered believe that M&A is going to pick up quickly in the next couple of years.

So how will this play out? What types of activity will the market see?

Click on the Applied Clinical Trials blog for more information.