Medidata Solutions & University Of Carolina Wilmington Tie Up

Medidata Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ:MDSO) , a NY-based global provider of clinical and cloud-based solutions for life sciences companies, announced a strategic partnership with University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) to introduce its advanced cloud-based technology to the UNCW clinical research scholars.

This is a three-year agreement through which UNCW students will gain complete access to Medidata’s industry-leading technologies like Medidata Clinical Cloud pro bono, Medidata Rave and iMedidata, forming a single platform unifying medicine, science and technology.

Additionally, the students will get formal training of the cloud based solutions in Medidata’s eLearning platform, the Medidata Academy to enhance their clinical analysis skills. However, all the other terms of the agreement have been kept under wraps.

Meanwhile, a glimpse at the share price movement reveals that Medidata rallied 1.3% to close at $54.08 following the news.

As per management, the partnership will exclusively focus on skill enhancement of next-generation research scholars by providing them with a pragmatic exposure to lab analysis. Notably, 80 students have already been enrolled and will be annually trained on Medidata’s platform.

Our Take

In the recent past, Medidata witnessed several notable developments which include the commercial partnership with SHYFT analytics, launch of mHealth stroke study in collaboration with China-based Techfields Pharma and adoption of the company’s flagship Medidata Rave by Israeli-based Pluristem Therapeutics.

In our view, Medidata diversifies its core business through strategic tie-ups and partnerships. In fact, the share price movement trend has been quite attractive, as it represents a strong one-year return of 11.6%, better than the S&P 500’s 6.5% over the same time frame.

We note that the global sentiments for the eClinical solutions (cloud-based) market represent a lucrative scenario, as it is forecasted to reach a worth of $5.9 billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 12.1% (Markets And Markets). Buoyed by this huge market prospect, Medidata is set to gain significant market traction in the coming quarters.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Currently, Medidata has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Better-ranked stocks in the broader medical sector include INC Research Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:INCR) , Lantheus Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LNTH) and NuVasive Inc. (NASDAQ:NUVA) . Notably, all the three stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

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