GHO Capital, a European specialist healthcare investor, has acquired Quotient Clinical, a Nottingham, U.K.-based provider of outsourced, early-stage drug development services to the pharmaceutical industry. Employing more than 280 professionals, Quotient Clinical enables pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers to improve R&D productivity and accelerate drug development timelines.

Quotient Clinical’s Translational Pharmaceutics platform offers a differentiated service proposition in the form of an integrated approach to drug formulation development, “real-time” manufacturing and clinical testing within a single location. With significant time and cost savings, customers are able to bring drug products to market in a timelier manner.

Quotient has a strong customer base, providing support to a range of top-tier pharmaceutical companies and small-medium sized biotechnology companies. The company has 52,000 square feet of integrated operating facilities in Nottingham for pharmaceutical sciences and clinical trials, and an Edinburgh, Scotland-based data sciences function that includes medical writing, statistics and programming. Quotient’s state-of-the-art facilities are approved to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) standards with scalable technologies and processes.

Mike Mortimer, executive partner and founder at GHO Capital, said, “The outsourced services and contract development and manufacturing organization space is one that GHO Capital knows extremely well. Quotient Clinical has a highly attractive business model which can be scaled and expanded across Europe and in the U.S. in particular, making this an excellent investment opportunity for our fund. We look forward to working with the management team to further support the company’s internationalization.”

Mark Egerton, chief executive officer of Quotient Clinical, said, “Quotient Clinical has delivered exceptional growth over the past three years and our unique offering continues to drive international demand. We now have a robust platform from which to enhance our services on a global scale and, as a specialist investor, GHO Capital brings a deep network of experts across the outsourced services sub-sector to expedite this approach. We look forward to working with the team at this pivotal phase in Quotient’s growth strategy.”