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ICON wins multiple categories in 2019 CRO Leadership Awards

ICON recognised for specialised services offering across product development lifecycle

Dublin, Ireland, Tuesday, 5 March 2019 – ICON plc, (NASDAQ: ICLR) a global provider of drug development and commercialisation services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, has won awards across several categories in the annual CRO Leadership Awards.

ICON received 2019 CRO Leadership Awards in five categories, each further divided into three groups – Big Pharma, Small Pharma, and Overall. In three categories, ICON took awards in all three groups.

Winning categories:

  • Compatibility (Overall, Big Pharma, Small Pharma)
  • Expertise (Small Pharma)
  • Phase IV (Overall, Big Pharma, Small Pharma)
  • Quality (Overall, Big Pharma, Small Pharma)
  • Reliability (Overall, Big Pharma)

This builds on ICON’s success in 2018 when the company won a CRO Phase IV Leadership Award (Overall, Big Pharma).

For the 2019 CRO Leadership Awards, Life Science Leader magazine again teamed up with Industry Standard Research (ISR) to determine the award recipients. Sixty contract research organisations were assessed on more than 20 performance metrics in ISR’s annual CRO Quality Benchmarking survey.

Survey participants were recruited from pharma and biopharma companies of all sizes and were screened for decision-making influence related to working with contract research organisations.

“These awards are a testament to the expertise of ICON’s operational and scientific professionals, and demonstrate the ownership and outcomes focus we bring to all phases of the drug development process. It is especially pleasing to see us recognised both by big and small biopharma companies alike, commented Dr Steve Cutler, Chief Executive Officer, ICON plc.

“These awards recognise ICON’s comprehensive services, spanning the entire product development lifecycle and providing seamless solutions that ultimately lead to better outcomes for our customers”.

“Life Science Leader is proud to once again be working with ISR Reports to honor those CROs that have proven themselves to be the top performers in Compatibility, Capabilities, Expertise, Quality, Reliability, and Phase IV,” commented Ed Miseta, Executive Editor, Life Science Leader.

“The winners are selected by their pharma clients, who rate their CROs on 20+ different performance metrics. We believe the CROs receiving an award this year are truly at the top of their class and are deserving of this recognition. Being a top performer in any of these categories shows a level of expertise and commitment to clinical trials and serving the needs of biopharmaceutical companies and their patients.”


“Industry Standard Research continues to consider it an honor to provide the primary market research data for Life Science Leader’s CRO Leadership Awards. ISR’s stringent screening processes ensures that only highly qualified industry decision makers participate in our CRO  benchmarking market research,” commented Andrew Schafer, President of Industry Standard Research.

“This is paramount as we ask the research participants to provide experiential, not perceptual, feedback on their involvement with contract suppliers over the past 18 months. The data enables users of ISR’s market research to make confident business decisions based on the experiences of their industry peers.”

ICON previously received CRO Leadership Awards in 2018 and 2015.

A full list of ICON’s industry awards can be viewed at www.iconplc.com/awards. 

About ICON plc

ICON plc is a global provider of outsourced drug and device development and commercialisation services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and government and public health organisations. The company specialises in the strategic development, management and analysis of programs that support clinical development - from compound selection to Phase I-IV clinical studies. With headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, ICON currently, operates from 90 locations in 37 countries and has approximately 13,680 employees.

Further information is available at www.iconplc.com  

ICON Media Contact

Lucinda Sandon-Allum
Weber Shandwick
+44 (0)20 7067 0548
lsandon-allum@webershandwick.com