Overview

Clinical Site Services and Patient Advertising Guru were acquired by American Clinical Research Services to add tech-enabled patient recruitment capabilities.

Significance

Both the volume and complexity of clinical trials have increased significantly over the past decade as the trend toward specialized and precision medicines has grown. Clinical studies are increasingly decentralized and require more diverse patient populations, but stagnant patient participation levels continue to be a challenge. All of these factors have driven study costs to all-time highs, driving sponsors to demand more advanced patient recruitment, engagement, and adherence technologies to enable more efficient trial execution. Unfortunately, the majority of clinical trial sites and coordinators lack the necessary tools, expertise, and time to meet this demand.

Founded in 2005, Clinical Site Services (CSSi) is a full-service, global patient engagement organization offering customized site-centric recruitment solutions that increase site-level effectiveness, accelerate recruitment timelines, and improve patient retention. The Company has strategically planned and executed recruitment campaigns in 30+ therapeutic areas across 50+ countries, drastically improving potential patient pull-through and the conversion of interest into enrollment via its network of Local Enrollment Specialists (“LES”).

Patient Advertising Guru (PAG), an affiliate of CSSi, is a niche provider of advertising and media buying services for the healthcare industry. These industry-leading capabilities made CSSi and PAG ideal acquisitions for American Clinical Research Services (ACRS), a Site Management Organization(“SMO”) and portfolio company of Latticework Capital Partners. The combination of ACRS’ growing site network and CSSi and PAG’s patient pull-through capabilities creates a powerful end-to-end value proposition for sponsors and CROs.

Crosstree’s Role

Crosstree’s granular patient and site engagement expertise helped CSSi and PAG identify ACRS as the ideal partner to add tech-enabled patient recruitment expertise to the SMO’s suite of capabilities through:

• Synthesizing CSSi and PAG’s innovative and nuanced capabilities into a cohesive value proposition,
• Evaluating a broad slate of potential financial and strategic partners, and
• Leveraging market expertise to identify the ideal partner to maximize synergies and accelerate growth