BioWorld International Correspondent

PARIS - Cerep SA completed the sale of Hesperion AG, its Swiss-based clinical development services company, to Averion International Corp. for a total consideration of €25 million (US$36.8 million).

The deal provided for Averion to pay €20 million in cash and to issue €5 million of promissory notes to Cerep with a maturity date of three years.

Averion International, a clinical research organization that supplies services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device/diagnostics industries, is based in Southborough, Mass., and has its European headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, where Hesperion also is based.

Hesperion, a firm that supplies a wide range of clinical development services, with particular expertise in the areas of cardiology and oncology, was founded in 1996. Paris-based Cerep acquired it in early 2004, paying CHF16.1 million (US$13 million).

Cerep said the proceeds from the divestiture of its subsidiary will enable it to concentrate on its core business, which is the supply of services in support of the drug discovery and development process. Those include in vitro pharmacological and pharmaceutical screening and profiling using its BioPrint database, which enables the clinical effects of drug candidates to be modeled on the basis of their molecular properties, allowing promising candidates to be identified while eliminating those likely to fail at an early stage of the process.