Science Exchange Acquires OnDeckBiotech to Expand Scientific Services Marketplace in Biotech Industry
Palo Alto, California, June 7, 2016 (Newswire.com) - Science Exchange, the world’s leading marketplace for scientific research, announced today that it has acquired OnDeckBiotech, an international community and marketplace that connects biopharmaceutical companies with contract service providers. The acquisition brings together two of the major platforms for outsourced scientific services, and strengthens Science Exchange’s market-leading position by significantly increasing its global network of contract research organizations, core facilities, and other scientific service suppliers.
“Over $40B a year is spent on outsourced scientific research by the top 50 pharmaceutical companies alone, and much of this spend is highly fragmented across thousands of individual scientific service suppliers. Platforms for outsourced scientific services, like Science Exchange and OnDeckBiotech, solve the challenges associated with this fragmentation by providing scientists with efficient access to a diverse network of qualified suppliers under a single relationship,” said Dr. Elizabeth Iorns, Co-founder & CEO of Science Exchange. In praising the fit of the two companies, Iorns added, “OnDeckBiotech has developed a number of strategic relationships with industry groups and research foundations which complement the direct channels Science Exchange has developed with biopharmaceutical, government, and academic researchers.” OnDeckBiotech’s relationships, which include MassBio through the MassBio Gateway, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) through BIO BizLink, and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) through ADDF ACCESS, will continue to be supported by Science Exchange as part of its strategy to become the ubiquitous platform for scientific outsourcing across all disease areas and stages of research and development.
The total transactional volume of experiments conducted through the Science Exchange platform grew over 500% in 2015, and the OnDeckBiotech acquisition will further accelerate our already remarkable growth in 2016.
Elizabeth Iorns, Science Exchange Co-founder & CEO
As part of the acquisition, Science Exchange will take over OnDeckBiotech’s office in Cambridge, MA, giving Science Exchange a physical presence in two of the world's largest and fastest growing biotech research clusters. “Science Exchange already works with 8 of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies, many of which have invested heavily in these two clusters. Now with offices in Palo Alto and Cambridge, in addition to Account Managers operating remotely in San Diego, New York, and other core markets, our team is uniquely positioned to help researchers inside these organizations access the world’s leading scientific service providers and most innovative scientific technologies,” said Iorns.
OnDeckBiotech’s Founder & CEO, Cliff Culver, will join Science Exchange as VP, Strategy and General Manager, Boston as part of the acquisition. “Cliff has been a visionary in the outsourced scientific services space, and we’re incredibly excited for him to join our team and continue our joint mission of enabling better, faster, and more efficient scientific collaboration,” said Dan Knox, Co-founder & COO of Science Exchange. Culver added, "We can’t wait to get started working with Science Exchange. The industry consistently reports that time and effort spent identifying and managing outsourced contracts hurts research productivity. Our companies have each demonstrated the value we can create by addressing these challenges, and our combined platforms and networks are uniquely positioned to continue to lead the market.”
Iorns concluded, “The total transactional volume of experiments conducted through the Science Exchange platform grew over 500% in 2015, and the OnDeckBiotech acquisition will further accelerate our already remarkable growth in 2016.”
About Science Exchange
Since its founding in 2011, Science Exchange has become the world’s leading marketplace for scientific research. Through Science Exchange, researchers can securely access a network of 1,000s of screened and verified contract research organizations (CROs), academic labs, and government facilities that are available to conduct scientific experiments. Science Exchange has been used by researchers from over 2,500 different companies and organizations, including many large pharmaceutical companies and government research facilities like the NIH, the FDA, and NASA. The company's mission is to enable breakthrough scientific discoveries by providing researchers with easy access to the world’s best service providers. To date, the company has raised over $30 million from Maverick Capital Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Index Ventures, OATV, the YC Continuity Fund, and others.
Source: Science Exchange