The consortium comprising Elliott Investment Management, an affiliate of Elliott Associates, along with healthcare investment firm Patient Square Capital and private-equity firm Veritas Capital, is expected to pay about $43 per share in cash

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Syneos is a contract research organisation (CRO). (Credit: StockSnap from Pixabay)

A consortium of capital investment companies is reportedly looking to acquire US-based contract research organisation (CRO) Syneos Health, in a deal worth more than $7bn.

The consortium includes Elliott Investment Management, an affiliate of Elliott Associates, along with healthcare investment firm Patient Square Capital and private equity firm Veritas Capital.

On 24 February, Reuters reported that the biopharmaceutical company is exploring a sale.

The consortium is expected to pay about $43 per share in cash, which represents a 14% premium to Syneos’ share price on the last trading day before the announcement.

Syneos chief executive Michelle Keefe, in February, said: “The company had “work to do” to improve its win rates among small drug firms for which it relies on for a big chunk of its business.

“Many of these clients have cut spending as they have found it difficult to raise funding in a post-Covid-19 market downturn.”

Syneos was created in 2017, when INC Research Holdings acquired inVentiv Health for $7.4bn, including debt, and is based in North Carolina, US.

The company offers fully integrated biopharmaceuticals to help its customers improve and advance the delivery of their therapies.

It has nearly $3bn in debt and has a total backlog for contracts worth $6.8bn by the end of 2022, which decreased from $7.5bn by the end of 2021.

Earlier this year, Syneos signed a strategic multi-year agreement with Microsoft to collaborate with Microsoft Research and leverage developments from OpenAI.

The company has entered a strategic partnership with KX, to gain data-driven predictive analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities.