For brokers, referrers and the sourcing teams at data companies. Contract research organizations and clinical research organizations write down almost everything they do: protocols, SOPs, deviations, audits and project histories. This page explains the main types of CRO, which of their records an AI data buyer may care about, and the hard limits that keep most study data out of any deal. Then it shows where our scored segment of US labs, CROs and life-science companies fits in.
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People search for a list of contract research organizations for many reasons. A sponsor wants a vendor for its next study. A scientist is looking for a job. An investor is mapping a market. A broker, or the partnership team at a data company, has a narrower question: which of these companies hold records an AI data buyer may license, are still operating, and could sign a deal without breaking their contracts with sponsors or their duties to trial participants?
A trade directory or a conference exhibitor list answers none of that. It gives names and perhaps a service category. It does not tell you whether a company is active, winding down or already acquired, how long it has operated, or which kinds of records it likely keeps. That gap is what a scored list is for.
For this sector we publish one of our 20 US sector lists: US labs, CROs and life-science companies. Every company on it is verified active: the domain resolves, is not expired, is not parked and shows no error or placeholder page. Each company has a Data Asset Score from 0 to 100, a grade, the data it likely holds, its history and an activity status. The segment mixes contract research organizations with testing labs, research tool makers and other life-science companies, so the first job is to separate the companies that run contract studies from those that do not. The rest of this page shows how to do that, and what to look for once you have.
A contract research organization, or CRO, is a company that pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies hire to run parts of their research. The client is called the sponsor. The sponsor owns the program and, in almost every case, its results. The CRO supplies people, facilities, systems and procedures to do the work to an agreed standard, usually under a master services agreement plus a separate work order for each study.
"Clinical research organization" uses the same three letters. In everyday use it usually means a CRO that runs studies in people, from first studies in healthy volunteers to large late-phase trials. "Contract research organization" is the broader term. It also covers preclinical work in cells and animals, bioanalytical testing and laboratory services. So a search for a list of clinical research organizations in the USA and a search for a list of contract research organizations in the USA point at overlapping sets of companies, with the clinical version leaning toward trial management.
Next to CROs sit related businesses that you will meet in the same directories: site management organizations that run trial sites, independent research sites, central and specialty labs, and functional service providers that staff a single function, such as biostatistics, for a sponsor. They generate similar records with one important difference. The closer a company sits to patients, the more of its records carry information about the people in its studies, and the less of them can ever be offered to a data buyer.
For a broker, the useful mental model is simple. A CRO is a services firm that is paid to document. Its own product is a process that sponsors and inspectors can audit. That process, written down, is the part that may belong to the CRO. The study data that the process produces usually belongs to someone else.
The labels overlap, and a large CRO may offer all six. For a broker, type matters because it predicts which records the company owns, which belong to sponsors, and how close the work sits to patients.
Run a study end to end: protocol support, site selection, monitoring, data management, biostatistics, medical writing, safety reporting and regulatory submissions. Their own records include a deep SOP library, training curricula, internal audit histories, resourcing models and years of project management across many therapeutic areas.
Sponsor data dominatesFocus on one therapeutic area, such as oncology or rare disease, or on one function, such as biostatistics, pharmacovigilance or medical writing. Teams are smaller and expertise is deep. Their written methods, programming standards and review checklists can be the most distinctive thing they own.
Check size against buyer rulesRun trials in people, from early clinical pharmacology to late phase, and some operate their own clinical units. They hold monitoring reports, site communications, query logs and trial master file content. Much of it is tied to trial participants, to sites or to a sponsor's program.
Closest to patient dataRun studies before human trials: in vitro assays, in vivo pharmacology, toxicology, safety pharmacology and drug metabolism work, often under GLP. They keep study plans, method records, animal care procedures, deviation reports and QA audit findings.
GLP records and sponsor IPMeasure drugs, metabolites, biomarkers and antibodies in samples from studies. Method development and validation reports, run logs, instrument troubleshooting and decisions about when to reanalyze a sample make up their working record.
Sample results belong to the studyTest samples from many trial sites under one set of methods and reference ranges, and handle collection kits and shipping. They hold a large operational record: kit builds, shipping exceptions, query resolution and support tickets from site staff.
Lab results are patient dataThe table below is the most useful single view for sorting a CRO list. It separates the records a CRO creates for its own operations from the records it creates for, or receives from, sponsors and sites. The left column is where a possible data deal lives. The middle column is where most deals stop.
| Type | Records the CRO itself usually owns | Records that usually belong to someone else | First question in a buyer review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-service | SOP library, training material, internal audit reports on its own processes, project management templates, internal IT and help desk tickets | Protocols, case report forms, study databases, clinical study reports and anything delivered to a sponsor | Which records were written for the company's own operations rather than for a sponsor? |
| Specialty or FSP | Method guides, review checklists, statistical programming standards, internal style guides | Analyses, outputs and documents delivered to sponsors, often written in the sponsor's own systems | Does the team meet the buyer's size rule, and who owns the code and templates? |
| Clinical | SOPs, site training material, monitoring procedures, internal issue logs with patient and site details removed | Participant records, source documents, trial master files, safety reports | Can any record be separated from participants and sponsors at all? |
| Preclinical | SOPs, animal care procedures, notes on generic techniques, deviation and CAPA records with sponsor details removed | Study reports, raw study data, compound and target information | Do sponsor contracts restrict use of methods or know-how developed during a study? |
| Bioanalytical | Method templates the lab developed itself, instrument troubleshooting histories, internal training | Sample results, study-specific validation reports, sponsor compound data | Which methods are the lab's own, and which were developed for a sponsor? |
| Central lab | Logistics procedures, kit build records, support tickets with site and patient details removed | Lab results, requisitions, anything linked to a trial subject | Is the operational record free of patient identifiers, and can that be shown? |
Sponsors audit CROs, regulators inspect them, and their quality systems are built so that every step can be reconstructed later. That makes them unusually rich in written, versioned, expert records. It also means every record has an owner, a retention rule and often a confidentiality clause attached.
The richest group, and the one most often owned by sponsors. Expect most of it to stay out.
Usually the CRO's own work, written by its own staff. Often the strongest candidate for a deal.
Shows how expert teams solve problems over months. Sponsor names and study details need to come out.
Standard company data, with the standard privacy questions about staff and client contacts.
AI systems have read the published literature on drug development. What they rarely see is the working record behind it: how a deviation was investigated, how a method was validated and then fixed when it drifted, how a project team recovered a slipping timeline, or how a QA auditor decided a finding was major rather than minor. CROs produce that record every day, in writing, because their business depends on being able to show it.
Three features make it interesting. It is expert: the people writing it are scientists, statisticians, clinical monitors and auditors. It is structured: SOPs, deviation forms and CAPA records follow templates, so a buyer can see the same kind of decision made many times by different people. And it is longitudinal: a mature CRO holds years of versioned procedures and project histories, the kind of continuous record that buyer programs describe wanting when they ask for several years of records or mature operations.
There is a second reason, and it matters more for the higher end of the market. Practitioners describe three tiers of value, below. CROs sit in an unusual position on the middle tier. Writing a test of whether an AI system reaches the conclusion a GLP study director or a clinical QA auditor would reach needs exactly the experts a CRO employs. Whether a given CRO wants that kind of work is a separate question, but it is a reason to read past the raw records when you qualify one.
Practitioners say raw data is the cheapest tier. For a CRO this is a de-identified export of procedures, training material and tickets.
Practitioners say evaluations are worth about ten times raw data. They need the kind of specialists a CRO already has on staff.
Practitioners say full environments reach six to eight figures, with heavy engineering. Rare for a services firm without a technical partner.
As published, checked 7 October 2026. Ranges are what each program states for companies, not offers, and the top of a range is not the typical result.
"for approved data packages". Referral posting: "earn $50,000", "no cap", paid after onboarding plus a minimum revenue threshold.
Company range as published. For referrers: "Earn $50K per referral".
Company range as published, plus "Refer for another $10K".
The time practitioners say a deal takes to close. Referral fees, where they apply, come after that.
30+ employees (the referral posting says 30 to 200), US first, primarily English. Some specialty CROs are smaller than that, so check headcount before you introduce one.
20+ full-time US office employees and several years of records. For a CRO, count full-time US staff, not contractors or staff at sites the CRO does not employ.
micro1's published terms include sole discretion, clawbacks, no sharing payouts with companies and no posing as micro1's partner. Read each program's own terms before you introduce anyone.
A referrer introduces a company and steps out. The buyer runs the review, the contract, the export and the payment. See how to become an AI data broker for the three models and their exposure.
Every figure here is as published by the program or as cited by practitioners. None is a promise that a given CRO will be accepted, or that any fee will be paid.
General information, not legal advice. These are questions for the company's counsel, and for your own, before anyone discusses scope with a buyer. A broker who introduces a CRO never needs to see a record, and should not.
Clinical CROs, sites and central labs handle data about trial participants. Coded data can often be linked back to a person by whoever holds the key, so "no names" is not the same as "no patient data".
Ask counselWhich systems hold participant data in any form, and can anything from those systems be in scope at all?
Participants agree to specific uses of their data through consent forms reviewed by an IRB or ethics committee. Those documents were written for the study, not for licensing to AI companies.
Ask counselDoes any consent form or approval allow this use, and who would have to decide?
Whether HIPAA applies depends on the company's role and on who it receives data from. The de-identification standard in 45 CFR 164.514(b) names two methods, Safe Harbor and Expert Determination.
Ask counselIs the company a covered entity, a business associate, or neither, for each line of business, and what do its agreements require?
MSAs and work orders usually make the sponsor the owner of study data, results and deliverables, and keep confidentiality duties alive after the study ends. A sponsor's compound or target can appear in passing in almost any record.
Ask counselWhich records does each sponsor agreement cover, including know-how and methods developed during the work?
GLP, GCP and GMP rules, and 21 CFR Part 11 for electronic records and signatures, govern how regulated records are created, changed, retained and audited.
Ask counsel and QADoes copying or exporting any regulated record affect retention duties, audit trails or the validated state of a system?
Monitors, study directors and lab analysts appear by name in almost every record. If the company runs sites or labs outside the US, GDPR or other local laws may also apply.
Ask counselWhat notice or consent do staff need, and which names and identifiers must come out?
The best-known CROs are large public companies. They are listed here only so you can place the field. They are not taken from our segment, they are not scored on this page, and naming them says nothing about their data or about any wish to license it.
| Company | Type | Note for a broker |
|---|---|---|
| ICON | Full-service clinical CRO | Enterprise procurement and sponsor contracts make any data deal slow. |
| Medpace | Full-service clinical CRO | Large, with its own sponsor confidentiality obligations. |
| Syneos Health | Clinical and commercial services | Large and enterprise-run. |
| Fortrea | Clinical CRO, spun off as an independent company in 2023 | Large and enterprise-run. |
| Charles River Laboratories | Preclinical CRO and research models | Large; preclinical records carry sponsor and IP limits. |
Two things stand out for anyone sorting this segment for CROs. First, a high score does not mean a company is a contract research organization. Several of the strongest scores belong to companies whose likely data assets lead with support tickets and documentation, which is what you would expect from companies that sell products to scientists. Second, contract research organizations and other lab service providers are in the segment as well. To reach them you work through the full segment, filter by score, and tag each company by type yourself, using the six types above.
The order matters. Each step removes companies cheaply before the next, more expensive step, and none of them requires you to touch a single record.
{
"domain": "northfield-bioanalytical.example",
"data_asset_score": 66,
"grade": "B",
"status": "active",
"industry": { "group": "Life sciences, pharma and labs" },
"country": "United States",
"history": { "first_seen_year": 2004, "years_online": 22 },
"likely_data_assets": [
{ "label": "Lab, study and R&D records", "confidence": "high" },
{ "label": "Knowledge base, SOPs and documentation", "confidence": "medium" },
{ "label": "Support tickets and chat transcripts", "confidence": "medium" }
],
"factor_groups": { "history": "strong", "expertise": "strong", "knowledge_assets": "medium" }
}
In the example, a broker would read three things before anything else: the status is active, the company has about 22 years online, and lab records and documentation are both likely. The strong expertise group fits a specialist lab. The next question is not for the API but for the company's own site: is it a bioanalytical CRO, and are those lab records its own methods or sponsor sample work? The score cannot answer that, and it is not meant to.
The preview is free and shows the top 5. Scoring a company you already know needs any plan. The full list comes two ways: once, as a $249 CSV download, or always current through the API on Pro and Scale. It is one of 20 US sector lists, and the list hub shows live counts for each.
| Option | Price | Lookups a month | US labs, CROs and life-science companies | How you receive it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public preview and demo | No charge | Demo limited per day | Free preview, public | Web page, plus one company at a time in the demo |
| Basic | $99 a month | 5,000 | Not included | Score any CRO you already know through the API |
| One-time purchase | $249, once | None | Full list, a snapshot from the day of purchase, no updates | CSV download right after payment, also emailed; valid 30 days, 5 downloads per file |
| Pro | $299 a month | 25,000 | Full list, always current | API, JSON, up to 100 companies per call, with paging |
| Scale | $799 a month | 100,000 | Full list, always current, plus new segments on request | API, plus the one-file bulk CSV export |
Each one costs credibility with a CRO's leadership or with a buyer's partnership team. All of them are avoidable.
Introducing a reagent maker or a software company as a contract research organization because it sits in a life-science list.
Confirm the type on the company's own site. Describe it the way it describes itself.
Leading with clinical data, sample results or study reports.
Lead with the CRO's own operating record. Patient and sponsor data stay out unless counsel says otherwise.
Telling a buyer that a company with a B grade "has data for sale".
Scores are estimates from public signals: not valuations, not offers, and not proof that a company wants to sell.
Working a CRO that was acquired last year as if its old leadership could still sign.
Check status first. For acquired or winding down companies, find out who now owns the records.
Quoting the top of a published range to a CRO, or offering to share your referral fee.
Ranges are what programs publish, decided at their discretion. micro1's terms bar sharing payouts with companies.
Collecting example SOPs or tickets to "show the buyer".
Stay out of the data. Samples go from the company to the buyer, under the buyer's own NDA and process.
No. We do not publish a count of CROs in the USA, and no directory we know of is complete. The CROs we score sit in our US labs, CROs and life-science companies list, one of 20 US sector lists, where every company is verified active and scored. It mixes contract research organizations with testing labs, research tool makers and other life-science companies, so you sort the CROs out by type.
Both use the letters CRO. A contract research organization is any company that sponsors hire to run parts of their research, including preclinical studies, bioanalytical testing and lab services. A clinical research organization usually means a CRO that runs studies in people. In practice the two searches point at overlapping sets of companies.
Usually not the trial data itself. Participant data raises patient privacy, consent and HIPAA questions, and sponsor agreements usually make the sponsor the owner of study data and results. What a CRO may be able to offer, after its counsel reviews it, is its own operating record: procedures, training, quality history and project management, written without patient or sponsor details. General information, not legal advice.
The ones the CRO wrote for its own operations: SOP libraries with their versions, training material, internal audit and CAPA records with sponsor details removed, project plans and issue logs, internal help desk tickets and validated method templates the CRO owns. Each one still needs review for patient data, sponsor data and staff names.
Two ways. Buy it once for $249 on the list buy page: a CSV snapshot with no updates, paid by PayPal or card, with download links right after payment that are also emailed, valid 30 days with 5 downloads per file. Or keep it always current through the API: the Pro plan, $299 a month, gives you the full list as JSON, up to 100 companies per call, with paging, and the Scale plan, $799 a month, adds the one-file bulk CSV export. The free public preview shows the top 5, ranked by Data Asset Score.
No. Everything is company level only: the company website, its Data Asset Score and grade, the data it likely holds, its history and its activity status. We never publish or sell contact details of people.
No. The score is an estimate from public signals of the data a company likely holds. It is not a valuation, not an offer and not proof that the company wants to sell anything. Treat it as a way to decide which companies to look at first.
Use the free check against buyer rules. It reads the company’s public pages and compares team size, location, history and systems with the published rules of micro1, Mode and Grepped, with quotes. You can qualify a target in about 20 seconds.
The preview shows how the segment is scored. The demo scores any company you name. The check against buyer rules qualifies a target in about 20 seconds. Buy the full list once for $249, or get it always current through the API on Pro.