Coeus Consulting Group, a Philadelphia-based boutique life sciences consulting firm, has merged with Mirador Global, a Philadelphia-based consulting firm focusing on drug commercialization assessment and launch planning services.
Coeus helps US clients navigate the complex landscape of bringing drugs to market – supporting pharma, biotech, medical device, and payor companies. The consulting firm offers strategic and operational support, execution, and personnel resources, covering areas including business development, commercialization, regulation, and manufacturing.
However, the consultancy is typically not engaged until years into the drug development process. As such, the company has acquired Mirador, which has early stage service capabilities and works with clients in the early clinical trial phase.
“Our merger with Mirador Global complements our overall strategy to bring efficiency and cost savings to our clients earlier in the various phases of drug development,” said Marc Hixson, CEO of Coeus.
Mirador helps biopharmaceutical companies develop pricing and market access strategies, with services in global commercial strategy development, US and global forecasting and asset valuation, payer reimbursement, risk assessment and mitigation, portfolio assessment and prioritization commercial road maps, and launch planning.
The firm was founded in 2016 by Chuck Peipher, a more than 25-year veteran of the pharma industry. Before entering the consulting world, he spent two decades at AstraZeneca, latterly serving as senior director and team leader for global pricing and market access within specialty brands.
Mirador Global has eight employees listed on LinkedIn, while Coeus Consulting has 32.
As part of the merger, Mirador will become a fully owned subsidiary of Coeus Holdings, a newly formed parent company. Peipher will continue to lead Mirador’s service offerings, and will join Coeus Holding’s board of directors.
“Bringing a drug to market can take a long time and goes through a variety of phases and vendors to get there,” Peipher said. “It’s not uncommon for a pharma company to experience more than 6 different commercialization vendors before their product is approved by the FDA. By joining forces with Coeus, we can offer clients a broader team with extensive client side and consulting experience, thus becoming a valued partner, a virtual commercial extension, of their internal teams.”
Since the combined firms operate in different phases of the drug discovery process, they have almost entirely separate client rosters. This presents ample opportunity for cross-selling, according to a release from Coeus.
Coeus in April expanded its market access expertise with the addition of Kim Gwiadzdinski as VP of outcomes & value based contracting and Dr. Neil Minkoff as chief medical officer.