WIRB Copernicus Group, after acquiring three IRBs in the past four months, is continuing its spending spree, expanding into a new area with the purchase of ePharmaSolutions (ePS) of Plymouth Meeting, Pa.

The 14-year-old company is a provider of eClinical solutions and technology-enabled services including its cloud-based enterprise Clinical Trial Portal (CTP) and Electronic Trial Master File (eTMF), which are used by 350,000 clinical professionals in 130 countries. Both proprietary programs are designed to improve coordination of study start-up, site management and regulatory document control.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“For WIRB Copernicus Group, ePharmaSolutions is the start of a separate division that will continue to operate independently,” said Donald A. Deieso, Ph.D., WCG chairman and CEO. “Using ePS’ leading technology-driven solutions to assure that the activities of trial sites are coordinated, well informed and efficiently managed will result in significant benefits to pharmaceutical companies, CROs, institutions and subjects. Improving clinical trials is a cornerstone of WCG’s mission.”

Deieso said ePS—its fifth acquisition this year—continues the overall mission to reduce the time, cost and administrative burden of clinical research using technology that can help eliminate delays and reduce costs.

For Lance Converse, founder and CEO of ePharmaSolutions, joining WCG fulfills his company’s goal of improving the clinical trial process with a larger partner after developing an eClinical portal platform. 

“Don [Deieso] and I saw from our first meeting that we could work collectively to streamline—through technology—a major part of the IRB process,” said Converse.

Earlier this month, at the Disruptive Innovations to Advance Clinical Trials conference in Boston, ePS was awarded “Disruptive Innovator of the Year” for its ePharmONE cloud-based eClinical platform.

For WCG, ePS is its second non-IRB acquisition, following the July addition of Alliance Biosciences, a bio-safety and bio-security consulting firm now part of the WCG Biosafety division. Alliance Bioscience, a former division of Alliance Engineering, covers all aspects of the bio-safety review process, from building the laboratories and organizing materials to managing the regulatory review boards and the ethical approval process for drugs in development.

WCG also has acquired three IRBS over the past few months—New England IRB (NEIRB) of Newton, Mass., this month; and Midlands IRB of Kansas City, Mo., and San Diego-based Aspire IRB, both in June. WCG—which also includes the earlier acquisition of IRBNet plus original companies Western IRB and Copernicus IRB—provides members  with access to capital, training and business and science expertise, along with expanded marketing and sales, to allow them to accelerate growth. 

For more on this story, see next Monday's CWWeekly.