PPD

Ppd Inc

A contract research organization, PPD runs clinical trials and drug-development services for pharmaceutical, biotech, medical-device, and government clients around the world. It began in 1985 as a one-person consulting firm started by pharmacist Fred Eshelman out of his Maryland home, then grew and moved to Wilmington, North Carolina before Thermo Fisher Scientific took it over in late 2021. Fun quirk: PPD stands for Pharmaceutical Product Development, though in medicine the same letters are also shorthand for a tuberculosis skin test.