Mergers and acquisition activity in pharmaceutical services is common, particularly between private equity-backed companies looking to add new capabilities while growing their client rosters and revenue. The latest deal has Worldwide Clinical Trials agreeing to buy Catalyst Clinical Research, a contract research organization (CRO) that brings expertise in oncology clinical studies.
Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Axios reported that Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based Worldwide is paying $500 million. The companies expect to close the transaction in the current quarter.
Worldwide is a full-service CRO with about 3,500 employees in more than 60 countries. The firm lists neuroscience, oncology, rare disease, and cardiometabolic and inflammatory disease as its therapeutic areas of focus. Worldwide provides services across all phases of clinical research, but says it has made recent investments to its early-phase services and capabilities, including opening a Bioanalytical Center of Excellence and launching large molecule services in 2022. According to Certified Clinical Research Professionals Society’s (CCRPS) 2025 directory of the top 50 CROs, Worldwide has about $400 million in annual revenue.
Wilmington, North Carolina-based Catalyst also describes itself as a full-service CRO, but has particular expertise in early phase oncology trials. The firm, which was not large enough to make CCRPS’s top 50 list, says it has more than 1,000 employees in the U.S., Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.
“Bringing Worldwide and Catalyst together elevates our capabilities in oncology and provides a new solution for our collective customers,” Worldwide CEO Alistair Macdonald said in a prepared statement. “We are excited to add Catalyst’s deep operational expertise and oncology credibility to our own well-known [central nervous system] specialist CRO capabilities to create a differentiated biotech-oriented oncology solution.”
Worldwide is a portfolio company of private equity firm Kohlberg, which acquired a majority stake in the CRO in 2023. TJC, which prior to Kohlberg had been Worldwide’s sole investor since 2007, remains a minority shareholder. Kohlberg says it has more than $17 billion in assets under management.
Worldwide is part of a broader Kohlberg portfolio that makes up what the private equity firm describes as a pharma services ecosystem — connected but non-competing companies in the sector. Other healthcare companies in Kohlberg’s portfolio include pharmaceutical supply chain solutions company PCI Pharma Services, outsourced pharmaceutical commercialization services firm Trinity Life Sciences, and drug and medical device packaging company Nelipak Healthcare packaging.
Catalyst is owned by QHP Capital, formerly known as NovaQuest Private Equity. Raleigh-based QHP invests in life sciences and pharma services companies; NovaQuest acquired a majority stake in Catalyst in 2018. Since 2018, QHP says it has invested more than $1 billion from two funds spread across 10 platform companies.
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