A name change can be an annoyance when prospecting for new biotech startups if you’re duped into thinking you’ve just stumbled upon a new drug developer. “Hey, a new biotech lead in my territory!” However, that inconvenience is minor compared to the mess a company name change can cause in your CRM database as contacts and activity entries are duplicated or lost forever. Will conversations with XPro contacts find their way under the Caldera Pharma account record? Likely not for some time. If two different accounts exist in parallel, then what happens to the Caldera call history when people eventually forget about the original name? If someone types in “Caldera” in the Salesforce search box, is the XPro account going to show up first in the results? You get the idea.

Here is a list of biotech companies that changed names in 2014. Use this to update Salesforce or Microsoft CRM and keep your contact data clean. We recommend that you replace the main account name with the new name and the old name in brackets. This will help with searchability while the sales team gets used to the new name. Mark your calendar, and one year from now, edit the account record again and drop the old name completely. No data migrations, no account merging, no confusion.

(New Mexico) Caldera Pharmaceuticals —> reborn December 4th as XPro Sciences

(Michigan) Aastrom BioSciences —> reborn as Vericel Corporation announced October 9th

(Netherlands) BBB Therapeutics —> reborn as BBB Therapeutics Sept 30th

(British Columbia) Cannabis Technologies —> reborn as InMed Pharmaceuticals October 21st (a good idea!)

(Maryland) Cytomedix —> reborn as Nuo Therapeutics November 13th

(Massachussets) Advanced Cell Technology —> reborn as Ocata Therapeutics November 14th

(Ontario, Canada) Bioniche Life Sciences —> reborn as Telesta Therapeutics Nov 24th