Healthcare specialist private equity firm Genesis Capital has made an undisclosed size investment in one of New Zealand’s largest clinical trials businesses, P3 Research.
Sydney-based Genesis is led by partners Dr Michael Caristo and Chris Yoo, both of whom previously worked for Crescent Capital where they specialised in healthcare deals.
Caristo said P3 Research focuses on excellence in the patient recruitment process, high-quality data and streamlined processes in Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials for global pharmaceuticals companies and contract research organisations.
They said P3 has a significant network of sites and is known by its clients as having the ability to recruit patients from a diverse cross-section of the New Zealand population. P3 also gains patients access to medications that would otherwise be difficult to find or expensive.
Based in Wellington, P3 Research has seven clinical research sites from Tauranga in the north to Dunedin in the south.
The company was founded in 1998 by chief executive Professor Richard Stubbs.
“With Genesis now on board, we look forward to being able to further expand our high-quality service capability with new sites catering to new and expanded therapeutic areas for our clients, while increasing patient access to the latest ground-breaking therapies across a broad range of disease states,” Stubbs said.
Genesis received legal advice on the deal from Harmos Horton Lusk and financial advice from EY.
Caristo and Yoo set up Genesis in 2018. After initially focusing on advisory work and investing on a deal-by-deal basis, the firm closed its first fund at $190 million in late 2021. Genesis made a pre-fund investment in Adelaide medical trials business Avance Clinical which it exited to The Riverside Company in November 2021. Last year, Genesis took a controlling stake in Melbourne-based clinical testing laboratory Crux Biolabs (APE&VCJ, Aug 2022).
Over the last ten years, clinical trials businesses in Australia and New Zealand have targeted by private equity firms and corporate buyers. In Australia, Mercury Capital invested in Novotech and exited its stake four years later to TPG; George Clinical was acquired by Asian regional private equity firm Hillhouse Capital; Agilex Biolabs was acquired by Healius (ASX: HLS); Nucleus Network was acquired by Crescent Capital and exited to Blackstone; 360biolabs was acquired by private equity-backed US medical laboratories company BioAgilitix Labs; and Southern Star Research became an investee of Quadrant Private Equity’s second growth fund.
In New Zealand, the merger of two clinical trials businesses, Lakeland Clinical Trials and Southern Clinical Trials was financed by Wellington-based Pencarrow Private Equity.
Image: P3 Research’s Wellington facility.