Clinical research organization Novella Clinical has hired a veteran of both Quintiles and PPD into its executive ranks as the company charts a global growth plan.
Nick Dyer is the new executive vice president of global business development for Durham, North Carolina-based Novella. He comes to Novella from Quintiles, also based in Durham, where he was vice president of drug development partnerships. At Wilmington, North Carolina-based PPD (NYSE:PPDI), Dyer led that company’s global contracts and proposals group.
CEO Richard Staub said he knows Dyer from their time together working at PPD, where Dyer built up experience in global business development. Dyer will take the reins of Novella’s business development team, which had previously reported to Staub. With Dyer’s hire, Staub said he is now free to devote his attention to other aspects of the business, including possible acquisitions.
Novella is a mid-sized CRO with revenue of more than $105 million. It targets small and mid-sized pharmaceutical customers. But even within that focus, Staub sees the CRO model changing and new opportunities emerging. Many of the large CROs such as PPD and Quintiles are pursuing a “strategic partnership” model in which the CRO offers a wider suite of services and shares a greater share of both the risks and rewards of drug development. The opportunity to expand into strategic partnerships figured prominently in Raleigh, North Carolina-based INC Research’s move to acquire Ohio-based Kendle (NASDAQ:KNDL).
Staub sees similar strategic partnership opportunities for mid-sized CROs such as Novella. Most of Novella’s business relationships with pharma companies to date have been traditional transactions where a sponsoring pharma company hires a CRO to perform a specific service. At Quintiles, Dyer’s experience included overseeing a joint venture with a top 10 pharmaceutical company. Staub said that while Dyer won’t be seeking deals with pharmas of that size at Novella, he’ll use that experience to bring new kinds of deals that go beyond the model of CRO/pharma outsourcing transactions.
“That’s where Nick is going to challenge some of the traditional thinking we’ve had in our operations,” Staub said.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Much of Novella’s growth has come from acquisitions. Last year, the company acquired Ohio CRO Prologue Research International, which gave Novella expertise in oncology. Novella also has a clinical services agreement with Colorado-based OSI Pharmaceuticals, which adds more oncology and diabetes/obesity expertise.
Staub said that with the oncology expertise in place, additional acquisitions are likely to be companies that bring expertise and regulatory experience in medical devices. He adds that medical devices represent a major opportunity for Novella because the larger CROs have historically channeled their resources to pharmaceuticals over medical devices.
