Syneos Health Brand Guidelines: INC Research, inVentiv Health & an Orange Spectrum

A research organisation and a commercial one.

Syneos Health is the name chosen for a merger. Its two halves were INC Research Holdings, described in the August 2017 completion announcement as a global Phase I–IV contract research organisation, and inVentiv Health, then a privately held company combining contract research with a contract commercial organisation, which provides marketing and sales services to drug makers.

inVentiv Health had its own long chain of names. English Wikipedia traces it to the healthcare division of Snyder Communications, formed in 1997, which was spun off as an independent company, Ventiv Health, in September 1999 and began trading on Nasdaq. In 2005 Ventiv bought InChord Communications, a healthcare marketing agency in Westerville, Ohio, and changed its name to inVentiv Health. In 2010 the private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners took it private.

The merger was announced in May 2017. In August 2017, Pharmaceutical Processing World carried the companies’ announcement that it was complete: the combined business would trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under INC Research’s symbol and be known as INC Research/inVentiv Health on an interim basis, until a relaunch under a new brand in 2018. Alistair Macdonald, previously chief executive of INC Research, became chief executive, and Michael Bell, previously chief executive of inVentiv Health, became executive chairman and president of the commercial division. In the announcement Macdonald said the new company would bring shared clinical and commercial expertise, data and insights to biopharmaceutical companies of all sizes, while Bell named market access and real-world evidence among the integrated services customers would gain.

A new name, and an orange spectrum.

The relaunch came on 4 January 2018, when INC Research/inVentiv Health became Syneos Health, Applied Clinical Trials reported. The trade journal explained the name, pronounced “SIN-ee-ohs,” as a reference to synchronising clinical and commercial capabilities, with “neo” signalling a new approach. The identity was created by Addison Whitney, which the journal described as the company’s own branding agency; the logo was meant to convey the integration of many disciplines, and the colour palette was a vibrant orange spectrum. Shares were to move to the new Nasdaq symbol SYNH by 9 January 2018. Clinical Informatics News, reporting the same announcement, quoted Macdonald calling the company’s approach a “Biopharmaceutical Acceleration Model” in which clinical and commercial experts work in sync; it gave as an example the use of behavioural insights, drawn from the commercial side, to speed up recruitment for clinical trials. The company claimed to be the only fully integrated, end-to-end biopharmaceutical solutions organisation. At the launch the company counted more than 21,000 employees and the ability to support customers in more than 110 countries.

The services behind the name fall into two halves. On the clinical side, the company’s website lists early-phase clinics in Miami and Quebec City, Phase II–IV trials, real-world evidence, regulatory affairs, drug safety and pharmacovigilance, bioanalytical services, clinical trial site networks, patient recruitment and functional service provision. On the commercial side it lists field sales teams, medical science liaisons, market access and patient support, and an agency arm, Syneos Health Communications, covering healthcare advertising, medical communications, public relations and healthcare naming and brand identity. English Wikipedia puts the workforce at about 28,000 people in 110 countries in 2022.

The company’s stated purpose appears in its own boilerplate. In 2023 it called itself a “fully integrated biopharmaceutical solutions organization” and used the registered line “shortening the distance from lab to life.” In March 2023, Wikipedia says, it signed a multi-year collaboration with Microsoft Research on a machine-learning platform for planning clinical trials.

Design and documentation.

Contract research organisations sell a service rather than a product. Drug, biotechnology and medical-device companies hire them to plan and run clinical trials, to test compounds before they reach people, to manage laboratories and to collect and analyse the data that regulators review. Because what they sell is largely invisible, their public image is built from people, places and numbers.

The pictures tend to repeat. Corporate sites and annual reports in the category often show clinicians and patients of different ages and backgrounds talking in calm, well-lit consulting rooms; scientists in lab coats working with pipettes and sample plates; and world maps dotted with the countries and sites where studies run. Data dashboards, charts and screens are common too, reflecting how much of the work is now about managing information as well as patients.

Colour follows the same caution. Blues and greens, from deep navy to soft teal, are frequent choices in health care and research branding, usually set against plenty of white, with a clean sans for names and headings. The aim is to look steady and trustworthy rather than playful, and names are often short, sometimes initials or a single coined word, partly because many of these companies are the product of mergers.

The industry also meets in person. Large gatherings such as the DIA Global Annual Meeting and the SCOPE Summit for clinical-operations staff bring sponsors, research organisations and technology suppliers together, and exhibition stands, panels and presentation slides there are another place where these identities are on show. This guide sets out what can be checked about each company’s history and ownership, and treats every colour and typeface here as our own interpretation.

Off the stock market in 2023.

Syneos Health spent less than six years as a listed company under its new name. On 10 May 2023 it agreed to be acquired by a consortium of private investment firms: Elliott Investment Management and its partners Patient Square Capital and Veritas Capital. Stockholders approved the deal on 2 August 2023, and on 28 September 2023 the company announced, in a release datelined Morrisville, North Carolina, that the acquisition was complete: Syneos Health was now privately held, and its shares were removed from the Nasdaq Stock Market. The release said the backing of its new private investors would let it speed up its transformation and fund investment in technology to set its integrated services apart. English Wikipedia gives the completion date as 30 September 2023.

Leadership has changed several times since the merger. Wikipedia records that Alistair Macdonald led the company from 2017 until April 2022, when Michelle Keefe, who had spent two decades at Pfizer, was appointed chief executive. Colin Shannon was named chief executive shortly after the take-private in 2023, and Costa Panagos succeeded him on 9 October 2024. The company is based in Morrisville, North Carolina.

For a design guide, Syneos Health shows how a merged company can announce itself with a coined name and a single colour family, and keep both through a change of ownership. Compare Parexel, another research organisation owned by private investors, and IQVIA. For this guide we use burnt orange, a brighter ember orange and a pale apricot with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Syneos Health’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.