A Diagnostics & Imaging Week
Invitrogen (Carlsbad, California), a provider of life science technologies for research and diagnostic applications, reported an agreement to buy CellzDirect (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina), for $57 million in cash.
CellzDirect provides hepatocyte-based cell products and related services used in the testing of new drugs. Primary human hepatocytes are the most accepted model for predicting a compound’s effects on enzymatic metabolism in the liver, the company said.
Such testing, recommended by FDA, can prevent costly failures in clinical trials. For this reason, CellzDirect’s products are mainly used by pharmaceutical and biotech companies in research and development, the company noted. Primary hepatocytes are also used in biomedical research to study liver diseases and to understand downstream implications of cellular function.
“CellzDirect’s high-value products and services will greatly complement Invitrogen’s market-leading portfolio of complete cell systems, including primary cells, media, matrices and growth factors,” said Greg Lucier, Invitrogen CEO/chairman. “The purchase of CellzDirect follows our strategy of investing in high growth areas of the market, specifically specialty cell systems.”
CellzDirect was founded in 2001 and employs about 90 at its sites in North Carolina and Austin, Texas. Revenue for calendar 2007 is expected to be about $18 million.
“CellzDirect has distinguished itself from other primary cell providers through scientific leadership, consultation with scientific and industry leaders, and constant communication with the medical community and regulatory bodies,” said Nicolas Barthelemy, Invitrogen’s senior VP of cell systems.
The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter. The acquisition is expected to be EPS neutral in fiscal 2008, becoming accretive in fiscal 2009.
In other dealmaking activity:
• Foundation Radiology Group (FRG; Pittsburgh), which provides radiology services to hospitals, said it has licensed Emageon’s (Birmingham, Alabama) RadSuite enterprise content and workflow manager and picture archiving and communications system (PACS) imaging software.
The partnership will provide FRG with the technical system necessary to deliver turnaround time performance for diagnostic imaging reads and the opportunity for quicker response times and enhanced patient care from physicians, the group said.
Emageon provides information technology systems for hospitals, healthcare networks and imaging facilities and develops enterprise imaging software for transferring information from any medical imaging device to physicians’ reading workstations. Emageon also offers open systems archiving and storage for medical images, video, audio and waveforms, which FRG will be able to offer to its clients.
“FRG has been evaluating PACS technology for some time and has spent the past six months evaluating competitive systems and found that the Emageon solutions are, by far, the best out there,” said Brandon Chan, CEO/chairman of FRG. “The Emageon system will not only improve our productivity — via its workflow management system — it will also provide a sophisticated image viewing and storage system for the medical images, such as X-rays, CT scans and MRIs. More importantly, the improved turnaround performance will enable our clients to provide enhanced patient care and patient safety.”
• Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS; New York) and Avista Capital Partners reported that Avista has completed its acquisition of Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging (Billerica Massachusetts), a supplier of imaging products for nuclear and ultrasound cardiovascular diagnostic imaging procedures.
The $525 million cash deal was first disclosed last month.
J.P. Morgan Securities served as financial advisor for BMS and Cravath, Swaine & Moore served as its legal counsel. Weil, Gotshal & Manges served as legal counsel for Avista.
Avista is a private equity firm with offices in New York and Houston.