Quintiles Transnational, the world’s largest pharmaceuticals services company, expects to rapidly expand its business in Asia over the next five to 10 years as rising incomes in the region spur "dramatic" growth for new medicines.
In an interview with the Financial Times in Singapore, CEO Dennis Gillings said that Durham-based Quintiles has expanded strongly through the global economic slump because big pharmaceutical companies have stepped up efforts to cut costs by outsourcing sales and research.
Gillings, a former UNC-Chapel Hill professor who founded Quintiles more than 25 years ago in a trailer, told the newspaper that the company's Asian business will increase from a fifth of its global total to 25 percent within two years, and then to a third in five to 10 years.
“The reason to move to Asia is that is where the economies are growing, the amount of pharmaceuticals that gets sold is growing dramatically and the research base is growing from scratch and expanding,” he said in the interview.
Gillings orchestrated a buyout that took Quintiles private in 2003, and the company doesn't disclose detailed financial results. But Gillings said its research, sales, consulting and agency businesses earn global annual revenue of a little less than $3 billion.
Quintiles moved into a new world headquarters just off I-40 at the edge of Research Triangle Park in March. The company employs about 24,000 worldwide and 1,700 in the Triangle.
Read the full Financial Times story here.
Assistant Business Editor Alan M. Wolf joined the N&O in 1999 covering the business of health care. He became an editor in 2001, and helps oversee the paper's daily business coverage and Sunday Work&Money section. He lives in Clayton with his wife and two children. Reach him at 919-829-4572 or