Founded in 1985, TRC Healthcare is a leading provider of lifelong learning solutions, and delivers content-driven decision support and education to more than 200,000 pharmacists, 120,000 pharmacy technicians, and 90,000 physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners. One of the largest providers of continuing education in the nation, TRC provides 80% of all CE credits to pharmacists in the US.

After its 2018 sale by Francisco Partners to Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, TRC engaged ST Advisors to help develop and execute an inorganic growth strategy, with the goal of leveraging the company’s strength in the pharmacy market and significantly broadening its platform of offerings. ST Advisors acted as TRCs outsourced EVP of Business Development and the team’s trusted corporate development partner, participating as an integral member of the executive leadership team throughout the process. 

After helping TRC develop its inorganic growth goals and aligning those goals with logical strategic adjacencies for M&A, ST Advisors undertook a proprietary, thesis-driven research process. Given the broad strategic focus, ST developed a rich list of over 2,500 candidate companies, and then, based on jointly defined criteria, efficiently narrowed that to several hundred top-tier matches for management review and discussion. After agreeing on the best approach, ST Advisors contacted the target companies to determine strategic fit and level of interest, then facilitated introductions and discussions. Drawing on its broad and deep healthcare-specific network, ST Advisors streamlined the target engagement process and had meaningful conversations with close to 80% of agreed upon target companies.

ST Advisors developed a multi-tiered inorganic growth strategy in a wide array of complementary markets for TRC, and acted as the company’s trusted advisor for more than four years and through three successful acquisitions. TRC acquired Kastango Consulting Group in Apr ’20, Bula Intelligence in Oct ’21, and QURE Healthcare in Mar ’22. Of those deals, two were proprietary; in particular, the deal with Bula Intelligence was enabled through a unique relationship built over 30 months, so that when the company was ready to transact, TRC (through ST Advisors) was Bula’s only call.