PharmaReview, a UK provider of compliance and copy review services for promotional materials used in the life sciences sector, has partnered with Bridgepoint Growth to further support the growth of the business. Terms of the transaction are confidential.
Established in 2011 to solve the problem of inefficient medical review processes in pharma companies, the company is a supplier to some of the world’s largest pharma groups, ensuring that the latter’s promotional materials are medically accurate, make scientific sense, comply with ethical legal and regulatory code requirements, and ensure all claims are backed up with references to accurate and up-to-date underlying sources.
This outsourced service reduces the time it takes for pharma groups to get materials through the review process, providing certainty to clients regarding when they will receive quality-controlled documents for amendment or final approval and release into the market.
Ralph Carter, co-founder and director of PharmaReview, said: “It has taken a long time, but thanks to our young and energetic team, and feedback from our clients while we protoyped the service, I'm delighted that we have solved a significant source of inefficiency in the pharma industry. PharmaReview is now a successful and growing business, and we need help with that growth. Bridgepoint bring depth of experience in expansion and will work with us to help us realise our potential. For our existing clients in life sciences, we will continue to offer world class compliance and copy review, and this will give us the opportunity to roll out to the rest of the industry.
Commenting on the transaction, PharmaReview co-founder and director Tessa Pugh, said: “We have reached an inflection point in our business development where the market opportunity for our services is growing quickly and we recognise the benefit of a partner who shares our growth ambitions and can work with us and provide the additional firepower to take the business to the next stage. I’m delighted to welcome Bridgepoint Growth as that new partner.”
Mayank Kanga, a director at Bridgepoint Growth said: “We believe there is a significant opportunity to broaden service offering, either through geographic or service expansion and to invest in the team to allow it to add further value to their clients and to realise the market opportunity open to them.”
Previous and current investments made by Bridgepoint in the sector include Quotient Clinical, a provider of outsourced, early-stage drug development services to the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, Prescient Healthcare, a provider of decision support and advisory services for pharma clients, Fishawack Health, a provider of outsourced pharmaceutical consulting services to pharmaceutical and biotech groups globally and Phlexglobal, Phlexglobal, a specialist provider of technology-enabled document management solutions and other support services to the global clinical research market.
Advisers involved in the transaction included: for Bridgepoint – Burness Paull (Legal), Candesic (Commercial), KPMG (Financial), BDO (Tax), Lockton (Insurance); for PharmaReview – Azets and K&L Gates.
The investment was made by Bridgepoint Growth I, a fund that makes growth capital investments, typically in businesses with significant UK or Nordic operations seeking equity investment between €5 million and €20 million.