Fairmount Partners Advises Diablo Clinical Research on its Sale to Flourish Research
- Fairmount Partners
- Feb 18
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 2
Clinical Research Facility Expands Flourish Research’s Geographic Footprint and Adds Additional Therapeutic Coverage
APEX, NC, February 18, 2025 – Flourish Research (“Flourish” or the “Company”), a leading multi-site clinical trial organization focused on cardiovascular, metabolic, neuroscience, and infectious disease therapeutic areas, today announced the acquisition of Diablo Clinical Research (“Diablo”), a distinguished multi-therapeutic clinical research facility performing phase I-IV clinical trials and medical device studies.
Established in 1995, Diablo has conducted more than 1,000 trials across various therapeutic areas, establishing a strong track record in endocrinology, cardiovascular, and metabolic studies, among others. Diablo is headquartered in Walnut Creek, CA. For more information, visit www.diabloclinical.com.
Reinhold Schulz, Chief Executive Officer of Flourish, said, “For 30 years, Diablo has built its reputation as a premier regional site, delivering high participant diversity, top enrollment-to-target statistics and participant retention. Diablo expands our geographic footprint and adds additional therapeutic area coverage. As a result, we can provide patients with best-in-class service and deliver to our clients accurate and timely data to support new and improved therapies.”
Emily Galdes, Chief Operating Officer of Diablo, added, “The missions of Flourish and Diablo are identical— advancing clinical research to bring life-enhancing therapies to market safely and effectively. By joining Flourish, our experienced principal investigators, management team, and staff can combine expertise that will be of great value to our sponsors and participants.”
Scott Niehaus, Managing Director at Genstar Capital, which acquired Flourish in 2024, commented, “Diablo boasts an impressive client base of sponsor and CRO partners that includes a broad range of leading pharmaceuticals, emerging biotechs and medical device companies. This is an important acquisition for Flourish given Diablo’s reputation and proximity to Silicon Valley, which provides access to expansion into new device trials and start-ups. Diablo is Flourish’s second acquisition under Genstar ownership, and we look forward to continuing to support Reinhold and the Flourish management team to grow rapidly and expand network efforts with customers.”
Fairmount Partners acted as exclusive financial advisor to Diablo. This project is the 186th pharma services transaction for Fairmount, and the 10th project focused on clinical research sites and patient recruitment, including:
CRI Lifetree sale to PRA, the first major deal between a large site group and a CRO;
ICON plc acquisition of PMG Research, a large US site network;
Synexus (backed by Lyceum Capital), the largest site group in Europe, in its sale to LDC (now part of PPD/Thermo Fisher);
ThreeWire patient recruitment sold to WCG;
Formation of the Alliance for Multispecialty Research combining 14 independent site groups together into a single entity;
ICON plc acquisition of MeDiNova Research, the #2 independent site group in Europe;
Antidote patient recruiting in $23 million fund-raising from LBO France, Merck, Smedvig, Octopus and others,
AMR site group recapitalized with Curewell Capital; and
Affinity Health site group in sale to AMR.
About Flourish Research
Headquartered in Apex, NC, Flourish’s network of 26 sites and over 150 investigators conducts studies spanning all phases of clinical trial research. The Company is known for deep medical expertise in several therapeutic areas and a reliable, predictable, and timely patient recruitment experience. With best-in-class technology, quality, and operations systems, Flourish is well-positioned to best serve patients and its biopharma sponsor and CRO clients to advance clinical research in an efficient manner. For additional information on Flourish, please visit www.flourishresearch.com.
About Genstar Capital
Genstar Capital (www.gencap.com) is a leading private equity firm that has been actively investing in high-quality companies for over 30 years. Based in San Francisco, Genstar works in partnership with its management teams and its network of strategic advisors to transform its portfolio companies into industry-leading businesses. Genstar currently has approximately $49 billion of assets under management and targets investments focused on targeted segments of the financial services, industrials, software, and healthcare industries.
About Fairmount Partners
Fairmount Partners is an independent investment banking firm focused on supporting middle-market companies to complete mergers and acquisitions, raise funds for growth, acquisitions and liquidity, and design and improve their corporate development strategies. Fairmount’s clients include successful entrepreneurs, private equity-sponsored enterprises, and global public companies. Since 2003, Fairmount has completed more than 300 transactions representing over $17 billion in aggregate value across 25 countries throughout North and South America, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East.
For more information, please visit www.fairmountpartners.com.
Contacts
Neal McCarthy
Managing Director, Fairmount Partners
Cecilia Gleason
Director, Fairmount Partners