Quintiles, the world’s largest life science industry services provider, is growing once more.

The company said Monday it had acquired Expression Analytics, an RTP-based genomics testing and analysis firm.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal is the latest in a series of  expansion efforts initiated by Quintiles. 

Expression Analayis has some 77 employees, most of which are based in the Triangle. All employees are joining Quintiles, a company spokesperson said.

“The addition of EA’s Genomic Know-How to Quintiles is another step forward in our efforts to bring personalized medicine into mainstream drug development,” said Thomas Wollman, senior vice president of Quintiles Global Laboratories, in a statement. “Its expertise in genetic sequencing and advanced bioinformatics is essential to understanding diseases and drugs at the molecular level. That’s a huge step in creating more value across the healthcare spectrum.”

Just two weeks ago, Expression Analysis landed a $27 million contract with the EPA.

“This is the right move for our company and our employees,” said Steve McPhail, chief executive officer at Expression Analysis.  ”Our mission perfectly fits Quintiles’ strategy to use genomic data and advanced informatics to yield actionable insights and more effective personalized treatments.

“The combination of Quintiles Global Laboratories and EA genomic technology excellence will facilitate worldwide access to resources and expertise to drive improvements in the diagnosis, treatment and management of complex disease,” he added. “EA can now play a global role in helping biopharma succeed in the New Health.

“This is the right move for our company and our employees. Our mission perfectly fits Quintiles’ strategy to use genomic data and advanced informatics to yield actionable insights and more effective personalized treatments.”

The contract with the EPA calls for EA to investigate toxicology-related RNA biomarkers for up to 12,100 compounds in 121,100 biological samples using high-throughput PCR assays, gene expression microarrays, and transcriptome sequencing.

EA will perform bioinformatic and statistical analyses to ensure the end-point data incorporated into the ToxCast database accurately represent the biology of the sample and are not subject to assay artifacts or batch-related effects.

All of the EPA related work will be conducted in EA’s GLP-compliant, CLIA-certified laboratories

[QUINTILES ARCHIVE: Check out a decade of Quintiles stories as reported in WRAL Tech Wire.]