Part 2 of 5 in our series: What Makes a Modern CRO?
Inside HiRO’s Global Growth Story
How vision, partnerships, and execution transformed HiRO into a global CRO
Most global CROs took decades to build the geographic and therapeutic breadth they have today. HiRO has done it in about six years, and acquisitions have been central to how. But Founder and CEO Karen Chu is clear about one thing: growth-by-acquisition only works if it’s disciplined. Buying capability for its own sake creates integration headaches. Buying the right capability creates a platform.
The Filter: Complementary, Not Just Bigger
HiRO’s approach starts with a simple filter. Does this organization bring something HiRO doesn’t already have, whether specialized expertise or a strong regional footprint? And just as important, has that team already built a real competitive advantage in its market, rather than just a presence in it?
That second criterion matters more than it might seem. A regional office with headcount isn’t the same as a team that hospitals and investigators already trust. So HiRO has consistently prioritized the latter: teams with established relationships and track records, not just geographic coverage on a map.
Case Study: Australia and New Zealand
The acquisition of PharmaSols is the clearest example of this philosophy in action. The team brought more than two decades of clinical trial experience across Australia and New Zealand, two markets that, on the surface, might look similar but actually offer very different value to sponsors.
Australia has long been an established destination for early-phase studies, with a mature ecosystem sponsors already trust. New Zealand, by contrast, is a market on the rise, offering strong patient access combined with meaningfully less competition for recruitment. Together, that combination gives HiRO’s sponsors more flexibility in how they design trials and recruit patients than either market could offer alone. It’s a good illustration of how HiRO thinks about acquisitions: not just “more capacity,” but “more strategic optionality.”
Read more about our ANZ regional expertise here: ANZ – Global Clinical Research Organization | HiRO
Beyond Geography: Building Analytical Depth
Not every acquisition has been about regional footprint. Others have strengthened core capabilities like data science, expanding HiRO’s analytical bench while also bringing in existing relationships with multinational pharmaceutical companies. Those two things compound. Better analytics deepen the technical value HiRO can offer, while the relationships that come with an acquired team open doors into new markets and client segments faster than organic growth would allow.
What This Means for Partners and Prospective Teams
For sponsors, HiRO’s acquisition discipline is really a proxy for something else: consistency. When every addition to the platform is filtered through the same “complementary and already competitive” test, sponsors can expect a consistent standard of expertise, regardless of which HiRO team is running their trial or in which region.
For organizations considering a partnership or acquisition conversation with HiRO, the signal is equally clear. HiRO isn’t looking to absorb headcount. It’s looking for teams that have already proven they can win in their market and want a bigger platform to do it on.
