INC Research, a North Carolina clinical research organization, has hired its new chief financial officer from the ranks of a fellow North Carolina company as it charts a growth course to make the Raleigh firm one of the biggest players in the industry.
David Gill has been CFO at Morrisville, North Carolina medical device company TransEnterix since 2009. Gill succeeds former INC CFO Dan Hartnett who has retired. Gill is no stranger to INC having served on the privately-held company’s board of directors since 2007. Gill said that while venture-backed TransEnterix has made good progress – he led the company’s $55 million series B round of fundraising in 2009 helped the company commercialize its surgical device – he feels his skills are better suited to a larger company that is further along commercially. INC employs about 2,000 globally and generated about $250 million in 2009 revenue putting the company in the top ten among CROs.
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According to CRO trade publication Scrip Clinical Research, Durham, North Carolina-based Quintiles is the industry’s top CRO by revenue with more than $3 billion in 2009 sales. Wilmington, North Carolina-based PPD (NASDAQ:PPDI) ranked third with $1.4 billion in 2009 revenue. Gill declined to give a 2010 revenue figure for INC but he said that the company experienced strong growth last year. Gill said that he aims to help INC grow even more, bringing a third North Carolina CRO into the top five within within five years.
“My goal is to do everything to facilillitate that,” he said.
INC has a long way to go to vault into the CRO industry’s top five. But Gill has experience working with companies seeking rapid growth. His 20 years of executive experience includes taking three companies public. Web hosting company Interland, now part of Web.com (NASDAQ:WWWW), went public in 2000; medical device companies CTI Molecular Imaging and NxStage Medical (NASDAQ:NXTM) went public in 2002 and 2005 respectively. CTI was acquired by Siemens Medical Solutions USA in 2005 for $1 billion.
An IPO is “not something that’s being actively discussed” for INC, Gill said. But he adds that a growing company needs to keep its options open and when there is a change in executive leadership, it helps to bring on an executive with experience in the public markets. Gill said that INC is well capitalized at the moment. The company last year announced it was being acquired by private equity firm Avista Capital Partners and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. The purchase price was not disclosed but Bloomberg News, citing an unnamed source, put the figure at $600 million.
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INC has particular therapeutic expertise doing clinical research in oncology, central nervous system treatments and infectious diseases, all of them areas of interest to pharmaceutical companies turning to CROs for clinical research. While INC will seek to boost revenue by seeking additional clinical research work, INC could also grow through acquisition. The company in January boosted its consulting capabilities with the acquisition of AVOS Life Sciences. Gill said that INC is not actively looking for acquisitions but the company will evaluate acquisition opportunities as they come.
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