ICON acquires US clinical testing facilities with acquisition of Healthcare Discoveries

28 February 2008

Dublin-based ICON (NASDAQ:ICLR), a global provider of outsourced development services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, has acquired Healthcare Discoveries Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of Catalyst Pharma Group Inc. that conducts clinical testing of pharmaceutical products.

ICON will pay $12m and up to a further $10m depending on performance.

Healthcare Discoveries operate an 85-bed clinical pharmacology unit in San Antonio, Texas and have significant experience of delivering high quality early-phase development programmes.

“The acquisition of Healthcare Discoveries is an important step for ICON” said ICON CEO Peter Gray. “It gives us a clinical pharmacology platform in the United States to complement our existing European Phase I operations. As well as gaining an outstanding facility, we are bringing into ICON an experienced team that has an excellent market reputation”

Healthcare Discoveries will become part of an early-phase development portfolio within the ICON Development Solutions division, which includes an existing 80-bed clinical pharmacology unit based in Manchester, England.

Dr Thomas Frey, President of the Development Solutions division, added “The investment in Healthcare Discoveries will enable us to meet the growing demand for highly scientific first-in-human and full spectrum of clinical pharmacology studies that are a critical part of the drug development process. We look forward to integrating these additional capabilities into our broad drug development service portfolio”

Dr Richard Anthony, CEO of Catalyst Pharma Group commented “We are delighted that Healthcare Discoveries will become part of the ICON group. Catalyst has worked with Dr. Dennis Ruff, President of Healthcare Discoveries, for the past four years to build a reputation for excellence in Phase I research”.