Edison Partners exited its investment in TrialScope, a provider of technology that helps drugmakers recruit participants for clinical trials.
The private equity and venture capital firm said in Feb. 9 statement that the Jersey City-based company was acquired by Informa. The deal generated a three-times return on the seller’s investment, according to Princeton-based Edison.
From its headquarters in London, Informa assists clients with events, intelligence-gathering and scholarly research. TrialScope is now part of the publicly-traded company’s Intelligence division.
In 2020, Moderna used TrialScope’s TrialScope Connect to recruit 30,000 participants for its COVID-19 vaccine trials. “We were committed to ensuring that the COVE study included a diverse population including those who have been historically underrepresented in clinical research and have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19,” Melanie Ivarsson, Moderna’s chief development officer said of the partnership in a Jan. 27 statement. “With TrialScope Connect, dozens of recruitment partners answered the call at once, which helped us meet our milestones.”
TrialScope’s Chief Strategy Officer Thomas – TRIALSCOPE
TrialScope works primarily with biotech and pharma companies, along with some device makers that are conducting trials. Company executives have explained that some clients are seeking to centralize, strengthen and streamline their trial disclosure processes.
“That’s the core of what we do from a technical perspective,” Chief Strategy Officer Thomas Wicks, told NJBIZ in a 2019 interview. “But we also help support communicating with patients by taking trial information and re-packaging it in a way that has been suitable for the patient community and meets their expectations and their information needs.”
Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline number among TrialScope’s prominent customers. “Anything we need is answered timely, and when something is extra important to me, it’s handled accordingly,” Sandi Marchese, director of global clinical disclosure for Novartis, said in 2019. “Attention from support, account management and even the high-level analyses that TrialScope performs for our benefit, all provide Novartis the confidence and ability to be as transparent as possible.”
Jennifer Van Ekelenburg, GSK’s chief of clinical governance and data transparency, was similarly laudatory. “TrialScope listens to their customers and are very responsive to feedback,” she said.
Financial terms of the Informa deal were not disclosed.
