Fostering Growth of Next Generation Technology and Services for Drug Development
Our goal: Build a company that excels in today’s Drug Development landscape through technology and services to support innovation, enable personalized medicine, and increase patient centricity.
- Drug Discovery, Design and Development utilizing leading technology and services
- Data Harmonization, Analysis and Visualization
- Patient Identification and Trial Enhancement
- Next Generation Insights and Solutions through the implementation of AI/ML/LLM
- Collection of unique patient population data assets
- Real World Evidence (RWE) data and capabilities
Our goal: Build a company that excels in today’s Drug Development landscape through technology and services to support innovation, enable personalized medicine, and increase patient centricity.
- Drug Discovery, Design and Development utilizing leading technology and services
- Data Harmonization, Analysis and Visualization
- Patient Identification and Trial Enhancement
- Next Generation Insights and Solutions through the implementation of AI/ML/LLM
- Collection of unique patient population data assets
- Real World Evidence (RWE) data and capabilities
Harpula Leadership: Experience is the Difference
News Update: Jack Shannon Joins Harpula as Chief Commercial Officer. Read more...
The Harpula – GTCR Partnership
“We look forward to working together with Steve and Mary to build a leading tech-enabled pharmaceutical solutions company,” said Ben Daverman, Managing Director and Co-Head of Healthcare at GTCR. “They have an exceptional track record in the pharmaceutical services space with experience across CRO and eClinical organizations. Their backgrounds, industry expertise and strategic vision make them ideal partners as GTCR commits to build a platform in this attractive industry.”
Harpula Office
Harpula Holdings, LLC.
Suite 100-125
Raleigh NC 27608
Contact Us
As Chief Executive Officer of Synteract, Steve drove the development and implementation of Synteract’s strategic direction, providing the focus to drive its growth and to meet its goal to become the CRO of choice for Emerging Biopharma companies. Over his 4+ years in the role at Synteract, the company defined and expanded it's leading CRO market position; grew top and bottom line financial metrics by double digits; culminating in a successful acquisition by Syneos Health in Dec 2020, returning a 4+X return to their Private Equity owners.
Steve’s previous leadership roles include 8 years at PRA Health Sciences as part of the Executive team and as EVP for Clinical Informatics and Late Phase Services. Previously, he held senior management roles at INC Research and Quintiles for over 12 years. Steve also provided executive leadership at Exco InTouch and ERT, following his passion of technology, data and patient engagement. As President and COO of Exco InTouch, Steve oversaw all aspects of operational delivery and technology development, while at ERT, he managed an advanced data and analytics platform for trial execution.
Throughout his career, Steve has been responsible for designing and leading operational growth, identifying and integrating new technologies, processes and services. He brings a team-oriented approach to leadership, with an extensive mix of operational and technology expertise, and a keen focus on customer delivery.
Mary's passion is working with people to attain lofty goals, and she has loved defining and managing teams from 20 to 500 people to achieve deliverables as well as quality, revenue, and profitability targets. Mary's broad-based skills in identification and implementation of clinical technology solutions have developed by identifying and implementing solutions for CRO and SMO needs in growth environments. Mary has shown proven leadership in organizational change, team development, and process creation as well as defining and developing global teams to meet the demands of today’s clinical research environment.
Most recently, Jack was the Chief Commercial Officer for Virb, the first end-to-end talent as a service platform that bridges the new talent gap in Clinical Research through innovative source, train, and deploy technologies.
Prior to his experience at Virb, Jack was the Executive Vice President, Business Development at Syneos Health and helped lead the post acquisition integration of Synteract, where he was the Chief Commercial Officer at the time of acquisition. At Synteract, Jack was responsible for managing the global sales team in North America and Europe, as well as the global marketing and brand awareness team where he oversaw a rebranding initiative and overall market acquisition strategies prior to being acquired by Syneos. In addition, as a member of the Executive Leadership team, he took part in the due diligence and acquisition of two companies that became part of Synteract. During Jack's tenure at Synteract, the company enjoyed 4x growth, and became an industry standout in the CRO market.
Before joining Synteract, Jack led the Global BioPharma Sales Team for Chiltern (NA, EU, APAC), helping to establish and lead market growth and sales strategies in the BioPharma segment. During his 3 years at Chiltern, the BioPharma sales team had significant growth in market share and sales. Chiltern then went through a successful sales process with Labcorp.
Prior to that, he spent 7 years at PRA Health Sciences, where he most recently was Executive Director, Business Development, managing three of PRA’s strategic partnerships and the inside sales team. He also held several senior level roles in business development and proposals over an 8 year period at Quintiles, now IQVIA.
Why We Chose It
The selection of a company’s name is no small undertaking. We began with lists of words that we found inspiring or that meant something to us. Given Steve’s roots, many of these were great Welsh words with lots of consonants and limited vowels but may be daunting for most to pronounce correctly. There were also words about our leadership style, words that reflected our vision, words that stood for important things in our lives. Amidst all these words, one stood out: Harpula. When Mary asked Steve what this one meant, Steve shared it was the name of the house that he was born in. His parents named their house in honor of the boat his father sailed on in the British Merchant Navy. We initially thought the word to be a derivative of the Harpullia tree, but Steve’s Dad quickly set him straight. It wasn’t a tree…it was a shell! You see…Steve’s Dad’s last voyage was on a tanker for Shell Oil, and all their ships were named after shells.
Mary and Steve quickly took to the shell concept. Not only was Harpula a fantastic element that represented family history, a harpula shell symbolizes what we aim to achieve. It is a flow of many parts which swirl together into an elegant result, providing a secure environment for those that are a part of it. Our logo was designed around that shape and concept and how it wraps around the things it protects. Hopefully we will continue to provide that care and protection to the teams and companies we bring together.
Where It All Began
Steve’s Dad, Eddie, was an engineer on multiple vessels during his time in the Merchant Navy. He sailed to all corners of the world, through the Suez and Panama canals, around both Capes and through every sea and ocean from East to West and North to South on the globe. He’s recently shared many of these stories with us, entertaining us and giving us a flavor of the adventures he went on. His last voyage was on the Shell Oil tanker named Harpula. This ship is the one remembered with most fondness as it became the name of the first house that Eddie and his wife Betty would call home.
A House Named Harpula
Steve grew up in Aberdare, a former mining town in the valleys of Wales, UK, and was born in that house called Harpula. His parents valued the link between working hard and providing for loved ones, so it was fitting they named their home after the ship his father worked on and called home for several years. Harpula was small but filled with the love and laughter of family, friends and neighbors and stories abound of the memories made in that close knit community. Steve is still best friends with the boy born in the house facing his, just a couple of feet apart….
