Veristat, a privately owned clinical research organisation (CRO) based just outside Boston in the US, is looking to expand its business, while tightening its management focus on optimising client benefits, by linking up with private investment group Variance Development Partners.

Variance, whose strategy is providing growth capital to small to mid-sized companies that offer services in the life sciences sector, has made an unspecified “growth equity investment” in Veristat.

The investment is geared to enhancing further the company’s “market leadership position” and equipping it to pursue growth opportunities.

John Balser, co-founder and president of Veristat, said Variance would be helping the company with its strategic planning, commercial execution and capital deployment, enabling him to “bring more of my focus back to client collaborations and scientific leadership at Veristat”.

Resources and expertise

At the same time, the partnership will provide “the resources and expertise we need to expand the impact we have had on the drug development programmess of our clients”, Balser noted.

“This combination of operational and scientific expertise will be invaluable to Veristat as we look to grow the company.”

Operating out of Holliston, Massachusetts, Veristat has been supporting clinical trials for pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device clients over the last twenty years.

Its service offering includes biostatistics, statistical programming, medical writing, clinical monitoring and data management, as well as preparing integrated summary documents and submission-ready CDISC (Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium) data for regulatory filings.

According to Patrick Flanagan, managing partner at Variance, many developing CROs “are filled with scientific talent which routinely gets distracted from maximising their client impact by the need to manage their business”.