Date: 2014-11-04
Type of information: Company acquisition
Acquired company: Definiens (Germany)
Acquiring company: MedImmune (USA - global biologics arm of AstraZeneca (UK)
Amount: $150 million and additional predetermined milestone payments
Terms: * On November 4, 2014, AstraZeneca announced that MedImmune, its global biologics research and development arm, has entered into an agreement to acquire Definiens, a privately-held company that has pioneered a world-leading imaging and data analysis technology, known as Tissue Phenomics™. Under the terms of the agreement, MedImmune will acquire 100 percent of Definiens’ shares for an initial consideration of $150 million and make additional predetermined milestone payments. Definiens will continue to operate its business with third-party customers. The proposed transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Details: Definiens is a provider of image analysis and data mining solutions for tissue diagnostics and clinical digital pathology. Definiens technology provides detailed cell-by-cell readouts from target structures on tissue slides and allows the correlation of this information with data derived from other sources, generating new knowledge and supporting better decisions in research, diagnostics and therapy. Its proprietary Cognition Network Technology® was developed by Professor Gerd Binnig, the 1986 Nobel Laureate in Physics, and unlocks information from cancer tissue samples by measuring the identity, locations and, most importantly, the relationships between the many and varied components of the complex tumour microenvironment. The acquisition will strengthen MedImmune’s focus on the discovery of novel predictive biomarkers in immuno-oncology. It is believed that using biomarkers to select patients for clinical trials could potentially shorten clinical timelines and increase response rates. As a result, the technology will serve as an important tool in the advancement of the most promising combination therapies across AstraZeneca’s combined small molecule and biologics pipeline, around 80 percent of which currently has a personalised healthcare approach.
Related: Cancer - Oncology Technology - Services
