Changing Face of CRO's

As we remarked upon earlier on this blog post, Covance Inc. entered a deal with Eli Lilly and Co. to purchase Greenfield Laboratories in Indiana for $50 million, while also entering a contract research deal for $1.6 billion. This new business model for Contract Research Organization and Drug companies was recently discussed in this article from redOrbit. As the article quotes:

"The Covance deal represents the next phase," says Douglas Peddicord, executive director of the Association of Clinical Research Organizations in Washington, D.C. "It marks a move from a contract research organization providing outsourced, disintegrated services to one where it is in fact going to be a strategic partner in Eli Lilly's drug development work."

The article further quotes Peddicord as saying:

"Development projects that used a higher degree of clinical research outsourcing got to the finish line, as in submitting a new drug application to the FDA [Food and Drug Administration], 30 days faster than others without any diminishing in quality,"

It will be interesting to see if more and more companies will reach similar agreements if the Covance/Eli Lilly deal prove fruitfull.