i3 acquired a privately held contract research organization (CRO) operating in Latin America. It did not name the company it acquired but said it would be called ” i3 Latin America” going forward.

According to i3’s news release, the acquired firm had operations in “Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. This full service CRO specializes in clinical research and professional outsourcing and has a wide range of medium to large pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients.”

In the release, the company said:

“Our strategy of increased geographic reach continues to honor i3’s responsibility to our customers,” said Glenn Bilawsky, CEO of i3. “Pharmaceutical companies want to expedite development and gain cost efficiencies through well-run trials that are completed on time and on budget. Our expansion will help us accomplish those goals while still maintaining i3’s commitment to specialization and quality.”

i3 also announced a new office in Delhi: “i3 will provide clinical research and data services offerings for India-specific and global trials. In addition to project management, monitoring, regulatory and quality assurance services, its data services offerings will include data entry and programming, data management, biostatistics and statistical programming. A staffing solutions business will meet the temporary staffing needs of pharmaceutical companies in India and provide recruiting and training support for i3 operations in India.”

i3 has a massive amount of data about patient outcomes, and is one of the few firms that can serve the worlds of both health care and pharmaceutical research. The company’s 300 terabyte “Galaxy” database is a single repository with information about members, providers, policies, products, pharmacy usage, finances, and insurance claims. The database has 10 years of longitudinal, fully integrated medical, pharmacy, and lab data on 30 million Americans.

The company is sponsoring a May, 2007, users conference, a practice that is widespread among clinical technology firms but less so in the world of CROs. That meeting is May 15-7 in San Francisco. i3 is a division of Ingenix, which in turn is part of the United Health Group, one of the nation’s largest managed care companies.

United Health recently announced a variety of changes in the executive suite. One of them illustrates how important technology is to the company. Richard Anderson, currently executive vice president of UnitedHealth Group and chief executive officer of Ingenix, will become president of the new Commercial Services Group, including Specialized Care Services, Ingenix and Exante Financial Services. United Health Group’s Mr. Anderson will oversee technology efforts across the enterprise, which includes all application development, maintenance and infrastructure.