Jeff Williams, chief executive officer at Clinipace Worldwide, talks to The Skinny about his company’s emergence as a member of Forbes’ “Nifty 50” – the most promising privately held companies in the country.
Clinipace is growing quickly and as a result is ranked No. 36 on the new Forbes’ “America’s Most Promising Companies” list.
The magazine chose 50 firms – the “Nifty 50” – that are privately held, have demonstrated high growth companies and appear to have bright futures.
And who knows the story better than Williams, who co-founded Clinipace Worldwide in 2003. The idea was to build ”a clinical research company that would take a different approach to managing clinical trials,” the firm’s website says. “He wanted to build a company where technology served as the foundation of the research.”
Forbes believes Clinipace is succeeding at that approach.
What is Clinipace doing in each of the specified categories for selection— what are its keys to growth in a tough field? (Note: Categories for selection included ndustry market, management team, company momentum, partners/acquisitions, competitive advantages, editorial coverage, capital raised)
Despite a challenging economic climate, a growing number of drugs are being put through clinical trials. According to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, North Carolina boasts 110 contract research companies with nearly 19,000 employees, one of the largest concentrations in the world. The Triangle sees almost two-thirds of the state’s clinical research activity.
Pharmaceutical companies are using Clinipace’s evolving technologies, best practices, and services to digitize the clinical trial process and drive the advancement of global pharmaceutical research and development.
A major macro trend that bodes well for smaller CROs. It’s what I call outsourced innovation. Historically, big pharma outsourced just the D part of R&D…development…to CROs. The R part, or research part, was the proprietary domain of the pharma company. Discovering and inventing new drugs has been their core competency, today, however, pipelines are not robust in these big firms and innovation is now happening at a faster pace outside the four walls of big pharma.
So where is innovation happening?
It is happening at small and mid-sized firms that can move faster and innovate better. Who is funding these firms? In large part, though not exclusively, it is big pharma (either through direct investment or licensing deals). So now the R is also being outsourced to these firms. And it is this segment where Clinipace Worldwide, with its technology-amplified digital CRO model and strong global footprint lives and prospers.
What’s the secret sauce?
Clinipace is standing out in the crowd because of two things: our technology-driven approach and our brilliant experts. The company is guided by the philosophy that technology is not an add-on to clinical trial processes; it is the backbone.
What’s the mission of Clinipace beyond being profitable and growing?
We improve the way contract research is performed by deploying proprietary technology that enables our project teams to conduct clients’ regulatory and clinical development programs to the highest levels of quality and efficiency.
To be the leader in deploying technology-amplified dCRO services to emerging, venture-backed, mid-tier and strategic biopharmaceutical and medical device firms, to help them bring new medical therapies to the market.
Please provide financial details as submitted to the magazine unless the mag is keeping it confidential – if so, general growth rates, etc would be fine.
- Revenue Change (2011 to 2012) 97.3%
- Revenue Change (2009 to 2012) 92.71% (From FORBES)
Clinipace raised outside money and has been acquiring firms for growth — will that continue? Is the organic growth good outside of acquisitions? Is the acquisition pace sustainable or is the company in consolidation mode for time being?
We will look at opportunities where therapeutic expertise and geography compliment our existing business.
There’s been quite a bit of consolidation in the CRO world over the past few years and expanding our capabilities with four acquisitions over the past three years is in response to the market and what our clients are asking for.
Now that funding is a little easier to come by than in years past, it’s an exciting time to be in the mid-market segment.
Does Clinipace have plans to raise more money?
We have a great story that is attracting top tier investors. We always take into consideration how new capital can be utilized to help us grow, and so it is possible that we do more fundraising in the future.
