Inverness Medical Innovations (IMI; Waltham, Massachusetts) has continued its 2007 acquisition spree with an agreement to buy Alere Medical (Reno, Nevada) for $302 million, consisting of about $125 million in cash and $177 million in IMI common stock.
Alere provides health and care management services helping patients with chronic illnesses manage their conditions through a combination of at-home monitoring, patient education, and nurse-patient relationships. The company’s 2007 revenues are expected to be about $77 million.
Earlier this month the company said it would acquire all the shares of Panbio (Brisbane, Australia) for 65 cents a share in cash. The proposal values the issued share capital of Panbio at about A$41 ($37 million). Panbio develops diagnostic tests, including those used in the diagnosis of flaviviruses and other arthropod-borne viruses, selling worldwide (Medical Device Daily, Oct. 9, 2007).
That deal was reported just a few days after the company said it had acquired UK-based Bio-Stat Healthcare Group, a distributor of both core laboratory and point-of-care diagnostic testing products to the UK market place, for about $33.4 million. In addition, Inverness said it would pay an earn-out up to about $14.6 million based on BioStat’s 2007 results (MDD, Oct. 5, 2007).
Other acquisitions Inverness has reported this year include: Cholestech (Hayward, California), a maker of rapid diagnostic products, which it completed in September for $326.3 million (MDD, Sept. 14, 2007) and first disclosed in June (MDD, June 5, 2007); Maritech (Newton, Massachusetts), a developer of protein-based diagnostics, for about $36 million (MDD, Aug. 29, 2007); HemoSense (San Jose, California), a developer of handheld blood coagulation monitoring systems, in an all-stock deal for $165 million (MDD, Aug. 8, 2007); and Biosite (San Diego) for $92.50 a share, beating out rival Beckman Coulter (Fullerton, California) (MDD, May 11, 2007).
“The acquisition of Alere Medical is an exciting opportunity to enter the disease management industry, a move which fits naturally with our goal of enabling individuals to take charge of their health,” said Ron Zwanziger, CEO of Inverness. “Alere’s expertise in patient monitoring and particularly in home chronic heart failure management complements our cardiac diagnostic technologies being developed at Biosite in San Diego and at Stirling Medical in Scotland. In addition, Alere brings with it exceptional management, a solid business platform, and strong revenues and profitability and is consistent with our overall acquisition strategy.”
The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year.
Ron Geraty, CEO of Alere, said the company is “thrilled” to become part of IMI.
“We believe that combining our efforts with those of Inverness will ensure continued growth within the care management industry,” Geraty said. “Acceptance of disease management within the medical community continues to accelerate, and this transaction will solidify Alere’s efforts to provide better services to its physician participants and hasten the movement towards an advanced medical home. We believe Inverness’ entry into the care management sector will help Alere to improve the position and viability of care management as a solution to healthcare’s challenges.”
In other dealmaking activity:
• Celera (Rockville, Maryland) said it has completed the acquisition of substantially all assets of Atria Genetics (South San Francisco, California) for about $33 million in cash.
The deal was first disclosed last month (MDD, Sept. 21, 2007).
Atria has a line of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) testing products that are used for identifying potential donors in the matching process for bone marrow transplantation. It was a privately held company with 13 employees, all of whom are expected to be integrated into Celera, the company said.
Celera anticipates that the acquisition will be accretive to earnings in the second half of fiscal 2008, excluding the impact of acquisition-related intangible amortization and transaction and integration expenses. The anticipated accretion will be included in Celera’s outlook for fiscal 2008 when the business presents its results for the first quarter of fiscal 2008, the company noted.
Earlier this month Celera completed its $195 million acquisition of Berkley HeartLab (Burlingame, California) earlier this month (MDD, Oct. 16, 2007).
Celera is the molecular diagnostics business of Applera (Norwalk, Connecticut).
• Pioneer Surgical Technology (PST; Marquette, Michigan) reported its acquisition of Angstrom Medica (Woburn, Massachusetts).
Financial details were not disclosed.
Angstrom is the first company to win FDA approval for a nanotechnology device, the NanOss. The device’s chemistries enable products that are highly osteoconductive and can remodel over time into human bone, the company said.
In June PST acquired Encelle (Raleigh, North Carolina), a company that develops products for tissue regeneration (MDD, June 6, 2007).
• HAPC (New York) reported shareholder approval for the acquisition of InfuSystem (Madison Heights, Michigan), a provider of ambulatory infusion pump services, from I-Flow (Lake Forest, California).
HAPC will acquire all outstanding shares of InfuSystem from I-Flow for $100 million, plus additional contingent consideration based on the compound annual growth rate of HAPC’s net consolidated revenue over the three-year period ending Dec. 31, 2010 and would be paid in 2011.
The maximum potential amount of the contingent consideration is $12 million and would be due if HAPC achieved revenue CAGR of 50% over the three-year period. HAPC will pay $100 million at closing through a combination of about $67 million in cash and a promissory note issued to I-Flow for the $33 million balance. In addition, roughly $20 million in cash will be paid to shareholders of HAPC who voted against the transaction and exercised their right to convert their shares into a pro rata portion of the proceeds from HAPC’s initial public offering held in trust.
HAPC originally reported last year that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire InfuSystem (MDD, Oct. 3, 2006). Since then, the deal has been extended several times.
I-Flow develops drug delivery systems.