Quintiles, the world’s largest life sciences services firm, is no longer the owner of NovaQuest, a company executive says.

Quintiles, which is privately held, had not disclosed that NovaQuest was no longer a part of the company until after news broke through a regulatory filing that NovaQuest was raising $500 million in capital.

(Read the earlier report here.)

“NovaQuest Capital Management operates independently from Quintiles, but has licensed the brand name which was formerly associated with us,” Phil Bridges, associate director of corporate communications, told Local Tech Wire and WRAL.com.

“There had been no previous announcement,” he said.

Quintiles is a “minority investor” in the fund that NovaQuest has launched, Bridges noted.

NovaQuest Capital Management lists a Raleigh address in the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. (Read the filing here.)

In 2006, Quintiles launched NovaQuest as its investment arm. Quintiles positions itself as the world’s largest life sciences services firm, providing investment and partnership opportunities as well as clinical trials and other traditional services as a contract research organization.

However, the deal involving NovaQuest does not mean Quintiles is out of the investment business.

“Quintiles continues to offer Capital Solutions on its own, separate from NovaQuest Capital Management,” Bridges said.

The NovaQuest deal is a recent development.

“NovaQuest Capital Management operates independently of Quintiles with separate ownership and an independent management team,” Bridges explained. “It began operations as a separate entity in late 2010. The NovaQuest brand name has been licensed from Quintiles for use by the new fund.”

In May 2006, Quintiles expanded an internal strategic partnering group to become NovaQuest. It was led by Ron Wooten, executive vice president of corporate development for Quintiles. He has directed Quintiles’ partnering efforts since joining the company in 2000.

Wooten is listed as a director of NovaQuest in the SEC filing.

“Yes, this is a big part of our plans to grow the company,” a Quintiles spokesperson said at the time. “We see this as accelerating our growth in the future. This is a key part of our strategy to grow beyond our traditional product development and customer services.”

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