Standing Up Independent HR, Payroll and Benefits in 90 Days: QuartzBio

How Melita enabled QuartzBio’s carve-out from Precision Medicine Group following a strategic growth investment by Eir Partners.

At a Glance

• Client: QuartzBio – connected sample and biomarker intelligence for clinical-stage biopharma
• PE Partner: Eir Partners (Miami) – health tech and tech-enabled services investor
• Event: Carve-out / spin-out from Precision Medicine Group following a strategic growth investment
• Workforce: 45 U.S. employees across 21 states; 20 international employees across 6 countries
• Deadline: Shared-services agreement expiring May 1, 2026 – full replacement required within 3 months
• Melita Scope: HRIS, payroll (U.S. + international), benefits, HR policies and procedures, employee support
• Outcome: Equivalent benefits at 20% lower rates; payroll live in 21 states and 7 countries; lower total cost; scalable, portable platform

Executive Summary

When Eir Partners made a strategic growth investment in QuartzBio, the thesis was clear: a high-potential life-science technology company, ready to operate as a standalone business. The obstacle was equally clear. QuartzBio had spent years operating inside Precision Medicine Group, a 4,000-employee parent, drawing its entire people infrastructure – HRIS, payroll, a competitive benefits program, HR policies, and senior-level HR support – from a shared-services agreement. That agreement was set to expire on May 1, 2026, and with it, the systems that paid and supported every QuartzBio employee in the U.S. and abroad.

QuartzBio needed to replace an enterprise-grade people function – one built for a 4,000-person company – in roughly three months, without disrupting employees or eroding a culture the leadership team considered central to the business. After evaluating a PEO, building an in-house HR team, and stitching together a patchwork of point vendors, QuartzBio selected Melita Group.

Melita delivered. Working against a hard deadline, Melita stood up a complete, independent people infrastructure: a single global HRIS platform, U.S. payroll across 21 states, international payroll across 7 countries, a benefits program equivalent to the Precision Medicine Group plan but at rates 20% lower, and white-glove employee support. The result lowered QuartzBio’s total people-operations cost, protected the employee experience through the transition, and gave the company a scalable platform it can grow on – and eventually run independently of Melita.

For Eir Partners, the engagement de-risked a core piece of the investment thesis and demonstrated a repeatable carve-out playbook for the rest of its portfolio.

Why This Matters to Private Equity Partners

Carve-outs and spin-outs create a predictable, high-stakes problem: the moment a portfolio company separates from its parent, it loses the shared infrastructure it depended on – often including the entire HR, benefits, and payroll stack. Transition Services Agreements (TSAs) buy time, but they expire, and they expire on a fixed date. Between signing and that date, the new standalone entity must build a functioning people operation or risk an interruption to pay, benefits, and compliance that can damage retention and culture exactly when stability matters most.

Melita partners with private equity firms to take this risk off the table. For Eir Partners, Melita converted a hard operational dependency into a managed, on-time deliverable – protecting the value of the investment and freeing the deal team and management to focus on growth. This case study illustrates the model Melita brings to the PE partner channel: speed against a TSA clock, equivalent-or-better benefits economics, multi-country reach, and a flexible commercial structure that scales with the business.

Situation

QuartzBio is a life-science technology company delivering connected sample and biomarker intelligence for clinical-stage biopharma. Founded in 2014, the business was acquired in 2019 by Precision Medicine Group, a roughly 4,000-employee organization. Within Precision Medicine Group, QuartzBio continued to operate as a separate strategic division.

Critically, QuartzBio ran on Precision Medicine Group’s people infrastructure through a shared-services agreement. That agreement gave QuartzBio access to an enterprise-grade package it could not have built on its own at that scale, including:

• A comprehensive and competitive benefits program
• Senior-level HR support and guidance
• Full-service payroll processing
• Established HR policies and procedures
• HRIS technology
• Day-to-day support for employees

By 2025-26, QuartzBio had grown into a globally distributed workforce: 45 employees across 21 U.S. states, plus 20 international employees in India, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Serbia, and the United Kingdom – a footprint that made the people-operations challenge materially more complex than a single-country company of the same size.

Complication

Eir Partners, a Miami-based private equity firm focused on health tech and tech-enabled services, made a strategic growth investment in QuartzBio with plans to spin the company out of Precision Medicine Group as an independent business.

The shared-services agreement was set to expire on May 1, 2026. On that date, QuartzBio would lose its HRIS, its payroll engine, its benefits program, its HR policies, and its HR support – simultaneously. The company needed to stand up a complete, independent people infrastructure of its own within roughly three months, spanning both U.S. and international staff.

Two constraints made this more than a procurement exercise:

• Culture and continuity were non-negotiable. Leadership treated culture as a top priority and required a smooth transition, a benefits program equivalent to what employees already had, and white-glove employee support throughout.
• The scope was enterprise-grade, the timeline was not. Replicating a 4,000-employee company’s shared-services package – across 21 states and 6 countries – in 90 days is a heavy lift for an organization that had never run these functions itself.

QuartzBio evaluated three conventional paths before turning to Melita:

• PEO: The support model and one-size-fits-all approach of PEOs were not aligned with QuartzBio’s objectives, particularly its culture and tailored-support priorities.
• Build an in-house HR team: Replicating the breadth of the Precision Medicine Group shared-services package would have required hiring several specialized employees – prohibitively expensive for a company of QuartzBio’s size.
• Multiple point vendors: Coordinating separate HRIS, payroll, benefits, and support vendors introduced integration risk, management overhead, and a fragmented employee experience – the opposite of a smooth transition.

Resolution: The Melita Solution

Melita was selected because its modularized service model could replace the entire shared-services package as a single, integrated solution – on the timeline, without the rigidity of a PEO or the cost of building in-house. Melita took ownership of the full people-operations stand-up:

A single global technology platform

Melita deployed QuartzBio onto one global HRIS and payroll platform rather than a patchwork of country-by-country systems. This gave QuartzBio a unified system of record for its entire U.S. and international workforce and – importantly – a platform the company can scale on and eventually operate independently of Melita.

Payroll across 21 states and 7 countries

Melita stood up compliant payroll processing for QuartzBio’s distributed workforce: 21 U.S. states and 7 countries. Multi-state and multi-country payroll is one of the most error-prone and time-sensitive elements of any carve-out; Melita delivered it within the transition window.

Equivalent benefits at 20% lower rates

Melita secured a benefits program equivalent to QuartzBio’s prior Precision Medicine Group plan – the equivalence employees needed for a smooth transition – while reducing rates by 20%. This directly addressed the cultural mandate (no degradation in benefits) and the financial one (lower cost).

Full HR policies, procedures, and white-glove support

Beyond systems, Melita supplied the HR policies and procedures and the senior-level, white-glove employee support that QuartzBio had previously drawn from its parent – preserving the day-to-day experience employees were used to.

A flexible, scalable commercial model

With Melita’s modularized service offerings, QuartzBio fully replaced its shared-services infrastructure at a lower overall cost. The engagement is structured on a variable per-employee-per-month (PEPM) basis, giving QuartzBio the flexibility to scale with headcount and to bring some or all of the work back in-house over time as its business needs evolve – without being locked into a rigid, all-or-nothing arrangement.

Results and Business Outcomes

• Met the deadline. A complete, independent people infrastructure – HRIS, payroll, benefits, policies, and support – stood up within the ~3-month window ahead of the May 1, 2026 shared-services expiry.
• Protected the employee experience. Equivalent benefits and white-glove support delivered the smooth, culture-preserving transition leadership required.
• Lowered cost. Benefit rates reduced 20% versus the prior program, with a lower overall cost than the alternatives (PEO, in-house build, or multi-vendor patchwork).
• Achieved global reach. Payroll live across 21 U.S. states and 7 countries on a single platform.
• Set the stage for growth. A scalable global platform and a variable PEPM structure give QuartzBio room to grow and the optionality to insource work over time.

Value to the Partner: Eir Partners

For Eir Partners, the QuartzBio stand-up was more than an HR project – it was the removal of a critical execution risk in the investment thesis.

• De-risked the carve-out. The single largest operational dependency on the former parent – the people infrastructure – was transferred to a managed, on-time solution, eliminating the threat of a pay, benefits, or compliance gap at separation.
• Protected portfolio value. A smooth, culture-preserving transition safeguarded retention and morale during the most fragile phase of the deal.
• Improved unit economics. Lower benefit rates and a lower total cost of people operations improved the standalone company’s cost structure from day one.
• Created a repeatable playbook. Melita’s modular, multi-country, PEPM-based model is a template Eir can apply across future carve-outs and platform investments – turning a recurring portfolio risk into a standardized, vendor-managed workstream.

Why Melita

This engagement reflects the capabilities Melita brings to private equity partners and their portfolio companies:

• Speed against a TSA clock: Full people infrastructure stood up in ~90 days, ahead of a fixed shared-services expiry.
• Equivalent-or-better benefits: Plan equivalence to preserve culture, with rates reduced 20%.
• Single global platform: U.S. + international payroll and HRIS on one system the company can scale on and own over time.
• Modular, white-glove service: Replaces an enterprise shared-services package without the rigidity of a PEO or the cost of building in-house.
• Flexible PEPM model: Variable cost that scales with headcount, with the option to insource work as the business matures.