Private equity firm Arsenal Capital Partners has acquired Certara, a provider of model-based drug development and data analytics software and consulting services to the biopharmaceutical research and development market.
Certara provides highly specialised and integrated solutions which consist of computer-based models supported by scientific consulting services and which span the discovery, pre-clinical and clinical stages of drug development.
Certara's solutions provide clients with significant reductions in the time and expense of bringing new drugs to market by enabling data-driven decisions which lead to more precisely designed studies with less risk of failure and improved subject safety– a benefit in the highly-regulated and increasingly costly research and development environment.
Stephen McLean, a partner at Arsenal and co-head of the firm's healthcare group, says: "We are delighted to invest in this exciting company which is making such an important contribution to improving the productivity of the drug development process. The average cost today of researching and developing a new drug is over USD1.5bn and takes 10 to 15 years. This is clearly inconsistent with the imperative of reducing the costs of global healthcare and Certara will make a difference."
"Arsenal shares our vision for applying analytics and scientific informatics to facilitate the distribution of pharmaceutical knowledge. After careful assessment, we were impressed with Arsenal's deep understanding of our mission and our value. We are confident that this is the right match for Certara and one that will benefit both our customers and staff," says Jim Hopkins, Certara chief executive.
Arsenal's Certara acquisition follows its 2012 purchase and consolidation into the WIRB-Copernicus Group (WCG) of the Western Institutional Review Board (WIRB), the Copernicus Group IRB, and IRBNet. The acquisition of Certara expands the range of services that its portfolio companies can offer to pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms, and contract research organisations. WCG provides independent IRB services and operates federally-mandated IRB panels.
