Quintiles will help Barcelona-based Almirall bring its new respiratory drugs to market in the United Kingdom.

Under the long-term partnership announced Monday morning, the first drug will treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease treatment (COPD). The treatment was approved by the European Commission in late May.

Quintiles is a Durham-based contract research organization. It conducted part of the clinical study of the COPD treatment and also helps Almirall bring products to market in multiple European countries.

No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Quintiles announced today that it has completed its acquisition of Advion BioServices, a 180-employee lab business based in Ithaca, N.Y.

Durham-based Quintiles, the world's largest pharmaceutical services company, paid an undisclosed amount of cash for Advion. The company will now be known as Advion Bioanalytical Labs.

Advion is one of several recent acquisitions announced by Quintiles, which at the outset of this year decided it wanted to add new services and boost its growth through acquisitions.

Quintiles named a new chief medical and scientific officer this morning.

Jeffrey A. Spaeder, 43, succeeds Oren Cohen, who now leads the Durham company's Phase I clinical research business.

Spaeder is a cardiologist with a medical degree from Johns Hopkins. He recently was executive director of global medical affairs Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Quintiles is the world's largest provider of services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. It employs about 20,000 people worldwide, including 1,600 in the Triangle.

In his new role, Spaeder will oversee Quintiles' drug safety and ethical conduct in clinical drug testing.

Shares of PPD, one of the Triangle's largest drug-research companies, surged after the Wall Street Journal reported the company is exploring a potential sale.

The newspaper cited unnamed sources and noted that PPD could still change its plans. The company could attract interest from private equity firms and rival contract-research organizations.

PPD is based in Wilmington, but employs about 1,400 people in the Triangle, and contributes to this region's reputation as a hub for the CRO industry. The company was founded 25 years ago by Fred Eshelman, a UNC Chapel Hill alumnus.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that PRA International, a smaller, Raleigh-based CRO, is on the market. PRA moved to Raleigh from Virginia in 2008, and is owned by Genstar Capital, a San Francisco private-equity firm.

Quintiles Transnational, which scrapped plans in March to refinance its debt because of turmoil that disrupted the global credit markets, is ready to try again.

The Durham pharmaceutical services company announced today plans to borrow $2.2 billion. If successful, Quintiles would refinance $1.7 billion of existing debt with better terms.

Quintiles has postponed plans to borrow $2.43 billion, blaming global turmoil that has rattled the world's credit markets.

The Durham-based pharmaceutical services provider announced this month that it wanted to refinance $1.7 billion of existing debt with better terms, and to raise new capital for various purposes.

"Since those plans were announced, global events have caused global credit markets to tighten dramatically," said spokesman Phil Bridges. "That resulted in less favorable credit terms, which was the reason we were doing it in the first place."

All of Quintiles' 2,300 employees in Japan are accounted for and safe, although some have damage to their homes and some have lost family members.

The Durham-based pharmaceutical services company and other local businesses have raced to reach all of their workers in Japan after last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami. One problem has been making contact with phone lines jammed.

Triangle businesses with operations in Japan are working quickly to make sure employees are safe after the massive earthquake and tsunami.

Everyone at the Tokyo office of Raleigh-based Red Hat was accounted for, said spokeswoman Kara Schiltz. As of Friday morning, that area of Tokyo still had power, although employees have felt smaller aftershocks.

At Durham-based Quintiles, it will take time to contact all 2,300 personnel in Japan, said spokesman Phil Bridges. Many of those employees are sales representatives and not based at one of the pharmaceutical services company's seven offices in Japan.

Local Quintiles officials have reached some Japanese workers, mostly through e-mail because landline phones are jammed, Bridges said.

Quintiles, the world's largest provider of services for the biopharmaceutical industry, plans to take advantage of the improving financial markets by borrowing $2.43 billion.

The money will allow the Durham-based company to refinance $1.7 billion of existing debt with better terms and raise new capital for various purposes, including possible acquisitions or other deals.

"Current financing terms are attractive, and banks are looking to invest in the right companies," said spokesman Phil Bridges. "We believe Quintiles is seen as a safe bet to execute this type of transaction because we have a strong track record of performance."

Quintiles is benefiting as pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies seek to cut costs and farm out more duties to contract companies. That includes running clinical trials of experimental drugs, sales and marketing of new medicines, and more.

Franklin Street Properties, a Massachusetts real estate firm, has bought Quintiles headquarters in Durham for $75.8 million.

The 259,531-square-foot, 10-story building was completed in 2009, and is entirely occupied by Quintiles.

The deal, which works out to about $292 a square foot, is the latest sign of investors strong appetite for trophy properties in the Triangle.

Durham's Hock Plaza I fetched a similar premium last year when Hines Global REIT paid $98.05 million for the 12-story office building, which includes 327,160 square feet.

Quintiles glass-and-concrete headquarters is the signature building in the Imperial Center off Interstate 40 at Page Road.

At night, it glows from within, lit by more than 3,000 lights.

It was developed by Tri-Properties.