Ahmedabad-headquartered life sciences firm Cliantha Research has acquired contract research firm Karmic Lifesciences Ltd for an undisclosed amount.
Through this deal, Karmic’s investors including Mumbai Angels, India Angel Network besides Basil Partners have got an exit. The investors had put in around $2.5 million through multiple tranches.
Set up in 2005 by Nidhi Saxena, a first generation woman entrepreneur, Karmic specialises in clinical trial management, clinical data management, bio-statistics, medical writing, regulatory consulting, drug safety & pharmacovigilance and bio-analytical services across early-to-late phase (Phase I-IV) and pre-clinical research. The company broke even in the year ended March 2012.
Karmic has its sales office in New Jersey and has global CRO (contract research organisation) partnerships for execution capabilities in the US, European Union and the APAC region.
The firm was earlier looking at PE funding worth $10 million, which did not materialise.
Last year Karmic, which had its core focus on clinical trials and clinical data management, had tweaked its business model to focus on medico marketing and build digital platforms on physician and patient engagement. This was to derisk the business and build more scale.
“Cliantha brings in strong clinical, bio-analytical and diagnostics capabilities that lend huge synergy to our existing clinical business apart from the strategic flexibility and financial stability of a well-established partner. Together we hope to provide an end-to-end services portfolio to our global clients,” said Saxena.
“Karmic gives us an opportunity to expand in the clinical data management, pharmaceutical analytics and medical marketing business. We shall immediately be able to execute and port all our trials onto kTrials eClinical Suite. Moving forward our goal is to provide kTrials as SaaS application to the pharmaceutical industry,” says Vijay Patel, executive director of Cliantha Research.
Cliantha Research offers clinical, bioanalytical, dermatology, biometrics, diagnostics and personal healthcare services.
In 2011, the firm acquired Hill Top Research, a leading global CRO in the US and Canada. Alternative Investment Market Advisors Pvt Ltd was the advisor to Karmic on this deal.
“The whole CRO space is under stress and as being a startup, Kramic posted a revenue of around Rs 8.5 crore in 2012 and 2013 too was a bad year for the firm. Even after it went down in 2014 and having a tough time, it provided a reasonable exit to investors,” said Pratham Jahoorkar, founding director at Alternative Investment Market Advisors.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
