Healthcare information and marketing services provider Jobson Medical Information LLC (JMI) this week acquired the assets of CenterWatch and The New England Institutional Review Board from Thomson Healthcare (a unit of The Thomson Corp.). A purchase price was not disclosed.
Both CenterWatch and NEIRB provide information and tools that serve the clinical trial industry (including a customer base of pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology and medical devise firms, CROs (clinical research organizations) and patients involved in the trials). CenterWatch produces relevant data for the field. The CenterWatch website lists more than 5,000 clinical trials and details more than 30,000 clinical trial sites. The site attracts more than 200,000 visitors a month. NEIRB supplies FDA mandated services to pharmaceutical companies and CROs.
JMI offers a wide range of offerings, from marketing services, information databases, trade publications, medical education programs, events and websites. The company is an affiliate of The Wicks Group of Companies LLC, a private equity firm that invests in properties in the communications, information and media industries.
We usually cover acquisitions made by The Thomson Corp. and its business units, not sales. But for JMI, these purchases represent significant acquisitions and should certainly help the company round out its healthcare information offerings. The company intends to use CenterWatch and NEIRB to expand its overall offerings in the development state of the pharmaceutical product pipeline, JMI CEO Mike Tansey said in a statement.
Both properties should position JMI for immediate prominence and future growth in the clinical trial space. Thomson's loss is definitely JMI's gain. It will be interesting to see if other similar acquisitions are also part of JMI's future.