08/15/2013
Wayne, PA (August 15, 2013)— Bracket announced today that it has been acquired by Parthenon Capital Partners (Parthenon), a growth-oriented private equity firm with offices in Boston and San Francisco, from Express Scripts Holding Company. Bracket, a specialty services provider, assists pharmaceutical companies and CROs maximize clinical data integrity and ultimately achieve greater certainty in trial outcomes with a unique range of solutions that span both eClinical and Scientific Services. With more than a decade of experience, Bracket’s team of experts has worked on more than 1,100 successful trials across 47 therapeutic areas with a particular emphasis on the central nervous system.
“As an independent company, Bracket will now have the autonomy, flexibility and resources to pursue our growth strategy and continue to provide best in breed technology enabled solutions for our clients,” said Catherine Spear, Bracket’s President. “We are excited to partner with Parthenon given their extensive investment experience in healthcare and deep understanding of technology’s power to advance medicine. They have a long track record of partnering with growth oriented healthcare companies like Bracket and we welcome their support as we look to grow Bracket globally through continued investment in innovative technology and cutting-edge science.”
David Ament, Managing Partner at Parthenon, said, “We are excited to have the opportunity to partner with the Bracket management team. We have been studying the clinical trials specialty services market for several years and believe Bracket offers a unique and highly compelling set of solutions to the industry.”
Bradley Sloan, Principal at Parthenon, commented, “We believe life sciences companies will continue to increase their utilization of technology enabled solutions designed to optimize trial efficiency and ensure data integrity. Bracket is well positioned to further its market leadership in these areas and help increase precision in clinical trials for years to come.”
The Company also announced that Ian Lennox has joined the Bracket board of directors as Executive Chairman. Mr. Lennox has invested, built and been engaged in a number of innovative companies in the clinical trial and pharmaceutical services industry, including Drug Royalty (DRI), MDS Pharma Services, Aptiv Solutions and Celerion LLC. Catherine Spear commented, “Ian has a long and distinguished track record as a board member, executive, and investor in the life science industry and we welcome his insight and expertise as we embark on the next chapter of Bracket’s growth.”
Bracket partners with sponsors and contract research organizations to achieve greater certainty and accurate outcomes in their clinical trials by providing a combination of scientific, technological and operational support, from Phase I to post approval. Bracket’s eClinical services are technology-driven solutions, applicable across many therapeutic areas. Bracket’s Scientific Services target indications that are dependent on subjective endpoints (Clinical Outcome Assessments) to evaluate safety, efficacy and value, and include Endpoint Reliability, Trial Enhancement Services and Computerized Cognitive Testing.
Bracket is a member of the Electronic Patient-Reported Outcome (ePRO) Consortium, a program run by the Critical Path Institute (C-Path). The collaboration works to improve the quality of patient reported outcomes, a crucial element in the drug development process. The members of the ePRO Consortium collaborate in a non-competitive, neutral environment to develop guidelines and advance the quality of electronic data collection methods for PROs.
Bracket was previously a business unit within United BioSource Corporation, which was acquired by pharmacy benefit manager Medco Health Solutions in September 2010, which was then acquired by Express Scripts in April 2012.
Bracket leads the speciality services field in the U.S., U.K., Continental Europe and Japan. For more information, visit www.bracketglobal.com.
Parthenon Capital Partners is a leading growth-oriented mid-market private equity firm based in Boston and San Francisco. Parthenon utilizes niche industry expertise and a deep execution team to invest in growth companies in service industries. Parthenon seeks to be an active and aligned partner to management, either through recapitalization transactions or by backing new executives. Parthenon has particular expertise in healthcare services, business services, and financial and insurance services, but seeks any service, technology or delivery business with a strong value proposition and proprietary know-how. Parthenon’s investment team has deep experience in corporate strategy, capital markets and operations, enabling the firm to pursue complex, multi-faceted value creation opportunities. For more information, visit www.parthenoncapital.com.