Date: 2011-07-19
Type of information: Company acquisition
Acquired company: Argene (France)
Acquiring company: BioMérieux (France)
Amount: € 37.5 million with contingent payments of up to € 5 million
Terms: bioMérieux is acquiring 100% of the shares of Ab-SERVICES SAS, the holding company that owns ARGENE. The company was acquired for a price of € 37.5 million euros, with contingent payments of up to € 5 million.
Details: This acquisition is bioMérieux’s tenth in the last five years. With over twenty years of experience in the field of virology diagnostics, ARGENE has 70 employees worldwide. The company’s 2010 sales reached €10 million euros, with molecular diagnostics representing three-quarters of its business. Headquartered in Verniolle, in the Midi-Pyrenees region of southern France, the company realizes 50% of its revenue abroad and has direct distribution in Switzerland, Italy and the United States. This acquisition will reinforce bioMérieux’s infectious disease offering in an important field of medicine. It will also enable bioMérieux to accelerate the time to market of a broad test menu on the new molecular platform the company is developing with Biocartis. The acquisition brings significant synergies: by leveraging bioMérieux’s extensive global network, ARGENE’s products will be made available to a broader international customer base. bioMérieux plans to adapt them to its fully integrated molecular system, under development with Biocartis, which is expected to be launched mid-2013. An additional license has been obtained from Biocartis to that effect. In molecular biology, ARGENE provides a large range of diagnostics for infectious diseases and is an international leader in the field of virological monitoring of transplant patients. Its products include quantitative tests for cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus and herpes simplex virus types 1 and 2. These tests are currently available for use on most commercial, open real-time PCR platforms.
Related: Molecular diagnostics
