Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,0, , language: English, abstract: This thesis deals in general with mergers & acquisitions in the CRO industry, and more specifically with reasons for M&A, success factors during the M&A process, and why M&A can fail in the Contract Research Organization industry. The pharmaceutical industry faces increasing obstacles in respect to the development and introduction of new medications. That has to do with stricter requirements for admission and sharper controls by authorities. Today, the research and development of a new drug can easily consume more than $800 million and lasting between 10 and 15 years. Due to these admission, money and time pressures, pharmaceutical companies are looking for an alternative in the drug development process. A very popular alternative is the outsourcing or in-house working with Contract Research Organizations (CRO). Contract Research Organizations are specialized in coordination and monitoring of drug development activities. Due to their focus they often offer a more sophisticated and faster process. Demographic changes, chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes, and completely new cluster of symptoms demand new therapeutically treatments. The size of the CRO market in 2012 was around $32 billion and had an estimated market growth of around 9 – 12% for 2013. Increased outsourcing and allocation of R&D money towards CRO reflects a driving force for prospective growth. To benefit from the good industry outlooks CROs adjust their service offerings and strengthen their competitive situation. More and more Contract Research Organizations consider mergers & acquisitions as a vital solution to achieve their objectives. Since couple of years we can observe an increased number of deals. Large corporations can close the gaps in the internal service pipeline and smaller firms can use mergers as a financial exit. However, many M&A activities are considered as ineffective and contra-productive for the shareholder value – either destroy or merely add. Depending on the study, the numbers of M&A failures vary from 50% to even 80%. Possible reasons may be not enough integration planning and unrealistic expectations on the cost and time. The reality shows that it is not that easy to cut costs by simple combining two departments after a merger or acquisition. Additionally, we can see that mergers and acquisitions basically not succeed during the actual process.[...]