Durham, N.C., Health Services Group Lands Government Contract

By Jean P. Fisher, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.

Oct. 4–The Constella Group in Durham, a provider of health services and information, has landed a federal contract to help developing countries address health issues such as HIV/AIDS and reproductive health.

Worth up to $325 million over five years, the contract from the U.S. Agency for International Development is the largest in Constella’s history.

Constella in January announced that it was buying Futures Group, a global health-services provider, to help it compete for international contracts.

Winning the USAID contract validates that strategy, said Don Holzworth, Constella’s chief executive officer.

Before the acquisition, Constella’s work was concentrated in the United States, mainly as a provider of health information to the federal government and a contract research organization conducting drug testing for the National Institutes of Health.

“The Constella Group alone could not have competed for this,” Holzworth said of the USAID contract. Constella has about 1,200 employees worldwide, including about 210 in North Carolina.

The company in January said that it had raised $61 million from outside investors to pay for the acquisition of Futures Group and future expansions. Futures Group was a Washington-based company that helped developing countries fight diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Under the USAID contract, Constella will help developing nations craft and implement programs to address HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, family planning, safe motherhood and other health issues.

Constella could help design HIV/AIDS education, outreach and health-services clinics for sex workers and homosexuals in India, where such groups often do not have access to information and treatment. Or the company could help reduce infant mortality in a developing country by improving roads to help mothers in labor get to a hospital.

Constella, which has employees in more than 30 countries, will work with countries all over the globe. USAID operates in 55 countries and all are eligible to receive services from Constella.

Holzworth said Constella likely will add employees as it begins work under the new contract, though he could not say how many. At least a few new jobs are possible in Durham.

“There are inevitably going to be additions across the company,” Holzworth said.

Constella expects to end this year with revenue of $150 million to $160 million, about double what the company brought in last year, Holzworth said. He anticipates revenue growth of about 20 percent next year.

The USAID contract may help Constella secure funding from other organizations that support work in HIV/AIDS, family planning and related issues worldwide, Holzworth said. A previous USAID contract helping developing countries craft — but not implement — health policies, awarded to Futures Group, helped secure funding from private foundations, he said.

“This puts us in conversations we otherwise would not be having,” Holzworth said.

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