According to press releases, INC Research Holdings, Inc. has agreed to merge with inVentiv Health, creating a combined company having an enterprise value of approximately $7.4 billion. The press release further notes that the combined company will be the second largest biopharmaceutical outsourcing provider, one of the top 3 contract research organizations and the largest contract commercial organization by net revenue.
In other news, INC Research was recently recognized for its cybersecurity awareness training at the 5th annual CSO50 Conference + Awards event held on May 1–3. The CSO50 recognizes 50 organizations for security projects that demonstrate “outstanding business value and thought leadership” and are selected through a nomination and review process each year by a team of security experts and academics. CSO is an online publisher focusing on information security, physical security, business continuity, identity and access management, and loss prevention.
According to its website, INC Research is a contract research organization that provides clinical development services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries. With more than 6,000 employees across 110 countries, over 100 client audits a year, and access to sensitive medical information by most employees, INC Research was tasked with providing adequate and efficient cybersecurity training—in addition to many other internal training programs.
The award-winning program it developed was said to save over 3,500 hours of disruptive training time. According to news sources, INC Research’s security program focused on frequency of training communications, as opposed to a single one-hour yearly session. Its program used two 15-minutes trainings per year, quarterly two-minute training videos and regular contacts with employees using the company’s intranet and email systems to reinforce cybersecurity principles.
Other honorees included AstraZeneca, Beebe Healthcare, Celgene Corporation, the FDA, and Health Management Systems.
