Health data and insights platform Apollo Intelligence buys GlocalMind

The acquisition will help Apollo expand into Australia, India, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and APAC

The healthcare and life science market insights industry is an over $6.6 billion sector that sources data from physicians and stakeholders, including managed care executives and payors, on new therapies or patient care, to help companies make decisions that impact time to market. Yet, gathering insights from key stakeholders across geographies is a time-consuming, and often inefficient, process.

"Laws against influence-peddling restrict direct physician access in many nations. Privacy considerations must be addressed, and since COVID, reaching busy doctors and healthcare providers has become even more of a challenge," Daniel S. Fitzgerald, CEO and President of Apollo Intelligence, a provider of real-time data and insights to the healthcare and life science industries, explained to VatorNews.

"The life science market insights sector has finally begun to embrace technology to assist in these tasks, but it still lags consumer market research in technology adoption. When working cross-geography, the challenge is even greater, given translations, regulations, and different approaches required to reach and engage healthcare professionals in each country."

Apollo currently supports global pharmaceutical and healthcare brands, market research agencies, and consultancies across 13 countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and now it will be expanding to more countries thanks to its acquisition of GlocalMind, a technology-driven healthcare market research services and panel company.

No financial terms of the deal were disclosed but it was revealed that Sandeep Sankhla, GlocalMind’s founder, and Vrinda Deval, principal, will continue their leadership positions at GlocalMind going forward, and both will join the Apollo leadership team. The GlocalMind brand will be retained for the foreseeable future. 

Founded in 2010, GlocalMind has teams in the US, Europe, and India, providing access to healthcare professionals (HCPs) and key opinion leaders (KOLs), including 1.5 million HCPs in more than 50 countries across over 80 physician specialties, as well as KOLs, payers, nurses, dentists, veterinarians, ophthalmologists, opticians, and pharmacists in Europe, APAC, the US, and Canada.

"Apollo Intelligence and GlocalMind were pioneers in leveraging technology to enhance the market research process in the life sciences industry – a domain that has clung to established processes, and often been reticent to embrace innovations that were well established in general computing use such as mobile platforms, Web interfaces, and more recently, AI and ML," said Fitzgerald.

"Both firms share a vision for transforming the life science market insights process, and a global radar and sensitivity to getting the job done."

GlocalMind’s real-time panel sourcing network and recruiting capabilities will give Apollo expanded access to HCPs and KOLs in Australia, India, Norway, Sweden, Denmark​, as well as in APAC, specifically China and Japan. GlocalMind also provides a database of KOLs in the US and Europe.

The company also has a research operating Center of Excellence in India, which Apollo says will become an important component of its global operations going forward, giving its clients more access and value-added services.

"The vision and capabilities of GlocalMind align seamlessly with Apollo's, creating a highly accretive synergy between the two. The reliance and need for timely data and insights is intensifying," said Fitzgerald.

"In integrating GlocalMind’s unique culture of innovation and presence in key geographies, Apollo has now enlarged its portfolio to better serve the needs of the healthcare and life science community."

Apollo was launched in 2019 with the acquisition of InCrowd, a provider of real-time, automated insights for the life sciences industry; that was followed in 2020 by the acquisition of Survey Healthcare Global, a global market leader in first-party healthcare data collection and custom survey solutions.

The company targets three communities, including brand managers or market research leaders at biotech, pharmaceutical, or medical device companies. It also offers first-party data collection services for market research agencies, and consultancies to support pharmaceutical and medical device companies in making critical decisions that impact health outcomes.

Finally, it also helps healthcare executives working at payer firms like insurance companies, in managed care organizations, or in provider networks. The company provides access to two million healthcare stakeholders worldwide, including physicians, KOLs, patients, caregivers, and allied healthcare professionals.

In June 2023, Apollo debuted its next-gen platform, which applies NLP, ML, and analytics technologies to expedite qualifying/engaging of participants, fielding surveys, while also analyzing/quality-checking data, and reporting. In the first 12 months on this new platform, it was able to increase speed-to-insight by 25% compared to the previous platform, reduced adverse event detection time as mandated by the FDA by 25%, and increased the depth of member profiles by 34%. And there’s more to come.

Going forward, the integration of GlocalMind will accelerate Apollo’s growth, as well as the ability of its healthcare and life science customers to innovate and deliver new treatments to market faster, Fitzgerald explained.

"I can’t say enough about how this acquisition reinforces Apollo’s mission and vision.  Adding GlocalMind gives Apollo high quality reach and access to key HCP stakeholder audiences around the world," he said.

"It strengthens our research delivery and operations by adding industry talent and expertise, globally, to meet clients’ needs for high quality and on-time research today, and tomorrow.​ We are thrilled to welcome the GlocalMind team, and know we will take our entire industry to new heights."