No one will ever accuse BioClinica of being an ordinary clinical trial solutions company. To unveil its new brand at April’s annual meeting of the Drug Information Association, BioClinica enlisted Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie–their dead-ringer lookalikes, anyway–to represent the company at its booth.
Almost concurrently, BioClinica’s website features a section called “What Happened to Bioman?” Visitors are invited to suggest what’s next for Bioman, the company’s former mascot when it was known as BioImaging Technologies, who has taken a backseat as a result of the re-branding.
“Let’s face it, clinical research is not the most exciting arena,” says BioClinica CEO Mark Weinstein. “We worked very hard, because the last thing you want to be seen as is a new vendor in the space. We worked very hard to drag over our legacy and take advantage.”
More than anything, the marketing tactics represent the new excitement at BioClinica–it’s fun to expand your addressable market by 60 percent to $1 billion. BioImaging Technologies had achieved an admirable market share of the medical image management niche when it purchased PhoenixData Systems in 2008 and entered the eClinical market.
The company had 18 employees when Weinstein arrived 12 years ago and now boasts 450 at two suburban Philadelphia offices after moving from Trenton, N.J., in 2000. BioClinica recently renewed its lease in Newtown for 10 years and its negotiating another long-term extension for its King of Prussia site. Stable senior management and some state assistance with training has kept BioClinica happy–and creative–in Pennsylvania.
“We are being aggressive because we think there’s an amazing opportunity in front of us,” says Weinstein.
Source: Mark Weinstein, BioClinica
Writer: Joe Petrucci