Genstar Capital has acquired Bracket, a provider of clinical trial technology and other specialty services, from Parthenon Capital Partners. Parthenon acquired Bracket in August 2013 from publicly-traded Express Scripts.
Bracket’s services are used by pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations to maximize the integrity of clinical data in order to achieve greater certainty in clinical trial outcomes. The company has nine offices and more than 700 employees worldwide. Since founding, Bracket has worked on more than 1,100 trials across 47 therapeutic areas with a particular emphasis on the central nervous system. Bracket is headquartered near Philadelphia in Wayne, PA (www.bracketglobal.com).
Bracket was created in 2011 through the merger of the Specialty Clinical Services and Clinical Technologies Group business units of United BioSource Corporation. United BioSource was acquired by pharmacy benefit manager Medco Health Solutions in September 2010, which was then acquired by Express Scripts in April 2012.
Bracket’s services are used in more than 90 countries to a base of global customers which includes 15 of the top 20 biopharma companies. “Bracket has built a strong reputation with its customers to help them increase efficiency and outcomes of their clinical trials, with a focus on complex therapeutic areas,” said Jeff Kinell, Chief Executive Officer of Bracket. “We were impressed with Genstar’s deep understanding of our mission and our value and we are excited to work with Genstar to further execute on growth investments and strategic acquisitions to expand our product capabilities, enter new therapeutic areas, and continue building on our partnerships with our customers.”
“Bracket is a premier technology solutions provider for pharmaceutical and biotech companies looking to improve the outcomes of their clinical trials,” said David Golde, a Director at Genstar who leads the firm’s pharmaceutical services investing efforts. “We are excited to support Jeff Kinell and his team as we share a similar desire to actively pursue growth initiatives and strategic acquisitions to provide increased value to Bracket’s customers.”
Genstar, which had a final close earlier this week of its eighth fund with $3.95 billion in commitments, invests from $50 million to $400 million in middle-market companies that have enterprise values from $50 million to $1 billion and EBITDAs greater than $15 million. The firm targets investments in the financial services, software, industrial technology, and healthcare industries. Genstar was founded in 1988 and is based in San Francisco (www.gencap.com).
“The addition of Bracket to our portfolio of companies reinforces our commitment to investing in high quality healthcare companies with strong growth drivers that can be further transformed by our active involvement with best in class industry leaders. We are proud and excited to help Bracket navigate its next chapter in its journey of success,” said Jean-Pierre Conte, Chairman and Managing Director of Genstar.
Jefferies was the lead financial advisor to Bracket and Cain Brothers acted as co-advisor.
© 2017 Private Equity Professional | March 29, 2017