Mr. Weinstein: We recently rebranded to the name BioClinica, but the former company, Bio-Imaging Technologies, was founded 19 years ago in 1990. From 1990 to 2007, the company was solely focused on medical image management services for clinical trials - a very good, profitable and growing business. In 2008 we made a strategic decision to move beyond medical image management into the e-clinical arena. We had been watching the space for several years and based on adoption rates of using electronic systems to conduct clinical trials exceeding 50% of new studies, we thought it was an opportune time to enter the space. Our entry point was the acquisition of Phoenix Data Systems. PDS was founded in 1997 and provides electronic date capture, EDC, interactive voice response, IVR, and data management services to pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Based on our expansion beyond medical image management, we rebranded the company earlier this year to be BioClinica. Since rebranding the company, we have already made two additional acquisitions, CardioNow and Tourtellotte Solutions, to expand our product and service offerings.
TWST: Are there any other companies working along the same lines as BioClinica? If so what are your advantages over them?
Mr. Weinstein: We do have competitors, which validates the market need for what we do. I think our long-term view of how you build a sustainable, solid business is different from many other companies that we compete with. If you look at how we built our medical image management business, it is a testament of how we will approach the entire e-clinical space. Historically, we have always been strong in two of the primary areas where medical imaging is used in clinical research, oncology and musculoskeletal. We felt that in order to provide the most comprehensive services to our clients, we needed to round our offering out to the other two areas where imaging is used, i.e., cardiovascular and central nervous system disorders, CNS. Based on this, we sought out and acquired two separate companies, HeartCore in 2004 and Theralys in 2007. With these acquisitions we are the only company that deals with medical imaging that covers all the four major therapeutic areas where medical imaging is used in clinical research. This is a true differentiator in the market and is what pharmaceutical clients are looking for as they make decisions on preferred providers to their organizations. We are now taking that same strategy to the rest of the e-clinical market. We acquired PDS as an entry point and will now be organically growing that business, and making acquisitions that will expand and differentiate our offerings from our competitors. In fact, we have already made two acquisitions since PDS that expand our services and client base. Tourtellotte Solutions, one of the acquisitions, expands our services to include drug supply scheduling and optimization. Between our offerings today, we deal with 100% of the top 10 pharma, 95% of the top 20 pharma and 75% of the top 50, plus over 100 companies that fall below those thresholds. Our depth and breadth of products and services combined with our expansive client set is a true differentiator in the marketplace and will be strengthened as we grow and make additional acquisitions.
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