Expanding the concept of contract research

Successful service providers anticipate customers' needs and make it easier for them to pay to have a job done rather than do the work in-house. CROs have done well by providing clinical development services, but last week's acquisition of combinatorial chemistry and functional genomics capabilities by CRO Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc. (PPDI) may represent a trend to expand the scope of contract services. The next test will be how well such companies integrate drug discovery services into their organizations.

PPDI (Wilmington, N.C.) will acquire Sarco Inc., a provider of low-cost combinatorial chemistry services (see Emerging Company Profile, BioCentury May 19), in a pooling of interests involving 263,158 newly issued shares of PPDI worth about $5.1 million. PPDI also will acquire from Ingenex Inc. (Menlo Park, Calif.) the GSX System functional genomics technology, including associated facilities and personnel, for $8.7 million in cash. Ingenex is majority owned by Titan Pharmaceuticals Inc. (TTNP, South San Francisco, Calif.)...