Optimapharm is pleased to announce the expansion of its office network, with new offices opening in Cambridge, UK, as well as the appointment of Maxime Stevens as Senior Vice President Business Development (Europe, EMEA, Israel and Emerging Countries).

Optimapharm, Europe’s fast-growing full-service contract research organization (CRO), is continuing with expanding its office network. After opening offices in the US and Hungary in May, Optimapharm is about to open another office in Cambridge, UK. Moreover, the company has been joined by the experienced Maxime Stevens as its Senior Vice President Business Development (Europe, EMEA, Israel and Emerging Countries).

Optimapharm is a European CRO with the leading position in Central and Southeast Europe with access to a market of over 300 million people. Following the global trend of consolidating the CRO market, Optimapharm is positioning itself as a market consolidator in the region; however, the company has witnessed strong organic growth, mostly in markets across Europe. At the beginning of the year, Optimapharm acquired the leading Czech CRO company MKS

Research, thus reinforcing its market position in Central Europe, and since then further expanded its office network to the US, Hungary and now the UK. Today, Optimapharm is operating from thirteen different offices, one in the US and twelve across Europe, allowing it to cover activities in nineteen European countries.

With its growth over the past few years, Optimapharm has exceeded global trends on the CRO market. The latest data show that over the past four years, the CRO market size has maintained an average annual growth rate of 10.08%, from USD 23.56 billion in 2013 to USD 31.43 billion in 2016 1 . The analysts expect that by 2024 the market size of the CRO will reach USD 51.3 billion. 2

“The expansion of our offices to include the UK, further increases our presence across Europe, and allows us to operationalize our trials across a number of the key markets within Europe as well as to continue to provide cost-efficient rapid patient recruitment solutions. Our continued focus on quality and expedited patient recruitment and retention has led to a 95-percent repeat business rate and really differentiates Optimapharm when speed and cost are the drivers. Consequently, we are often requested to rescue studies where patient recruitment becomes a challenge or to perform studies in biosimilars where rapid patient recruitment is a key driver of success. This expansion will offer our clients an even greater opportunity to get their studies performed on time across a wider range of countries” says Gordana Greguric Cicak, CEO at Optimapharm.

Maxime Stevens has more than 25 years of experience in executive leadership and has impacted long-term growth, operational excellence, and expansion of new geographic and channel opportunities for some of the major companies in the industry. Maxime had run Operations in Southern Africa for the WHO (World Health Organization) for seven years, developing medical programs, charities and NGOs across several countries. She then returned to the UK, moving into clinical research and advancing from International Head of Business Development to the CEO of a global CRO. In addition to building, restructuring and growing sales and operational teams, she has been instrumental in managing M&As and some crisis management as well. She received the WHO award for Outstanding Contribution to Ethics in Business and Humanity and was an Honored Member of the International WHO’s WHO of Professionals in both 2013 and 2014.

Roy Ovel, Chief Commercial Officer of Optimapharm, stated that „with this appointment, Optimapharm is further strengthening its Business Development team with a strong focus on expertise and capability to offer good-quality and time-focused tailor-made solutions to the most diverse demands of clinical research for both pharma and biotech companies. Maxime is totally and ethically committed to her clients, supporting the development of their programs, from investments (where requested) to market. We are really excited that Maxime has joined the expanding team at Optimapharm“.

OPTIMAPHARM d.d. za zastupanje i usluge

Almeria Business Tower, 10 th floor

Ulica grada Vukovara 284

10 000 Zagreb, Croatia

Tel: + 385 1 5603 600

Fax: + 385 1 5603 601

info@optimapharm.eu