IMS Health, a global provider of information, services and technology for the healthcare industry, has acquired TTC, a Philadelphia-based benchmarking solutions and analytics company that helps life sciences organizations around the world plan for and negotiate the costs of clinical trials.

TTC offers clients a set of clinical trial cost benchmarks, budgeting and negotiation tools to enhance the speed, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of their trial planning and management activities. IMS will integrate its evidence-based, anonymized patient and treatment outcomes insights with TTC’s comprehensive cost data drawn from organizations that conduct nearly 80% of all commercial clinical studies. TTC’s benchmark data and budgeting/negotiation services will be available through IMS’s clinical trial optimization unit, part of the company’s healthcare value solutions business. IMS Healthcare’s value solutions connects healthcare stakeholders through real-world evidence to demonstrate the value of medicines, enhance quality and drive improved results.

The TTC offerings complement IMS solutions currently provided to clients in the areas of protocol feasibility, country allocation, site selection, and enrollment planning and forecasting.

“This acquisition marks an important step in further expanding IMS’s capabilities in the pharma R&D space,” said Andrew Kress, senior vice president, healthcare value solutions, IMS. “The combination of TTC’s portfolio and IMS information assets will fuel ongoing innovation, enabling clients to base vital budgeting and negotiation decisions on real-world data and benchmarks.”

The acquisition follows IMS’s April 2012 acquisition of DecisionView, a technology company that delivers clinical trial planning and performance solutions. The combination will enable pharma R&D teams to significantly improve the productivity of their clinical trials through unprecedented access to advanced analytics and decision-support tools.

Linda Drumright, general manager, clinical trial optimization solutions, IMS, added, “There is growing demand for more data and analytics to optimize the clinical trial process. Together, we can deliver an end-to-end view of trial planning and execution—increasingly critical at a time when the industry faces significant challenges and requires new approaches.”