Serial entrepreneur Gerard Ryan, who sold his previous company to Dublin-listed Icon for €50 million, has agreed another multimillion euro sale, with US company Advarra buying his latest business Longboat Clinical.
The pharmatech start-up has been acquired by Advarra for an undisclosed sum, although informed sources said it represented one of the biggest M&A deals in Ireland this year.
Longboat, which has facilities in Dublin and Limerick, has developed a cloud-based platform which helps to manage clinical trials. It employs about 100 people.
Mr Ryan, a Limerick pharmacist who founded Longboat in 2014, also previously established Firecrest Clinical, which was bought by Icon in 2011. In addition, he is behind Ryan Group Holdings, which operates as a “super-angel” investor into early-stage companies that include Longboat and Aalto Bio Reagents, which makes ingredients for diagnostic tests for infectious diseases.