Water Street Healthcare Partners, a strategic investor focused exclusively on the healthcare industry, and JLL Partners, a middle-market private equity firm, have merged their companies CCBR-SYNARC and BioClinica. The combination creates a global provider of specialty outsourced clinical services.

JLL Partners and Water Street invested in BioClinica and CCBR-SYNARC in 2013 and reached an agreement earlier this year to combine the two companies. The firms recruited Jeffrey McMullen, an executive with 40 years of experience in the drug development industry, as chairman. Together, BioClinica and CCBR-SYNARC offer a comprehensive suite of services that support the world's largest pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with reducing the cost and time of global clinical trials.

"This merger creates a market leader uniquely positioned to support pharmaceutical companies with managing key components of their clinical trials," said Peter Strothman, partner, Water Street. "Together, CCBR-SYNARC and BioClinica offer complementary services and software solutions in the high-growth areas of patient recruitment and clinical development."

Dan Agroskin, partner, JLL Partners, said, "Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are increasingly turning to outside specialists to help them manage the cost and complexities of drug development. As one entity, CCBR-SYNARC and BioClinica offer a combination of scientific expertise, clinical trial experience and advanced technologies that solve challenges across the drug development continuum. Their solutions are proven to reduce clinical trial costs, shorten drug development time and improve data quality and compliance."

Together, CCBR-SYNARC and BioClinica support pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with a portfolio of specialized outsourced services that include medical imaging analysis and consultation, patient recruitment through a global network of 26 dedicated research centers, software solutions and consulting services and central lab services that analyze biological samples originating from phase I-IV trials.

Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.