Cross Country Healthcare Inc. (NASD: CCRN) completed the sale of its clinical trial services business to ICON plc (NASD: ICLR) for $52 million plus an earn-out of up to $3.75 million.

“Our divestiture of this business was based on an extensive review of our operations and the changing landscape in the pharmaceutical R&D outsourcing industry,” said Cross Country President and CEO Joseph Boshart. “Having successfully completed this transaction, we will narrow our focus and concentrate our resources on our core nurse and allied staffing and our physician staffing businesses, which pro forma would represent about 90 percent of our consolidated revenue.”

The company used a portion of the sale’s net proceeds to repay all $29.3 million of its outstanding bank debt.