Covance acquire Lilly campus

Covance has secured the acquisition of one of Lilly’s sites in order to help develop the firm’s research and development model.

The provider of drug development services will pay 50 million dollars (25 million pounds) for Lilly’s Greenfield, Indiana campus as the two organisations enter a strategic research and development collaboration.

Covance will take on the 450-acre campus in addition to the 260 employees already working there and will provide Lilly with a broad range of drug-development services over the next ten years for a contract value of 1.6 billion dollars.

The operations and ownership of the site will begin on October 1st 2008.

John Lechleiter, chief-executive of Lilly, said: "This strategic agreement is a result of a long-term trust-based relationship between our two companies. Covance has proven they can help accelerate drug development timelines and improve efficiencies with Lilly."

Meanwhile, Covance last month received Merck’s award for outstanding strategic collaboration.