Major CRO player Icon has bought Symphony Clinical Research to boost its trial services for at-home patients.
Icon says this will deepen its “patient, site and data strategy” and complements its similar services out of PMG Research and MeDiNova Research site networks.
What Symphony does, in essence, is allow trial services to come to the patient, reducing travel for those who struggle to leave the house, and therefore enhances Icon’s recruitability to those who may not have been able to reach fixed trial sites. This includes elderly patients and newborns or frail younger children.
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Headquartered in Vernon Hills, Illinois, and Gdansk, Poland, Symphony Clinical Research has been around for 16 years, with a focus on cardiovascular, immunology, oncology and respiratory diseases.
Nicki Norris, CEO at Symphony Clinical Research, said: “As the pioneer in alternate-site services, Symphony integrates clinical trial expertise with project management; in-home care and nursing to bring the site visit to the patient wherever they live. Icon provides Symphony with a great opportunity to extend our services globally and to use our knowledge, infrastructures and network to support ICON to enhance patient recruitment, engagement and retention.”
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Dr. Steve Cutler, Icon’s chief, added: “ICON has a focused patient, site and data strategy which is helping us to improve site identification, study placement, patient recruitment and retention. A core objective of our patient centered approach is to increase predictability in patient recruitment and improve patient engagement.
“Symphony Clinical Research further enhances this approach by providing us with the capability to offer patients at-home trial services making clinical trials more accessible for patients and improving enrollment. Symphony’s clinical trial experience and their strong therapeutic expertise will also enable us to broaden our hybrid trial solutions to customers and support services to sites.”