Kite Pharma Soars with Two T-Cell Acquisitions

by | Jul 29, 2016 4:09 pm | Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals | 0 comments

Kite Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: KITE) has been busy lately, announcing two separate license deals in the last week of July. On July 25, it acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to technology that advances the development of off-the-shelf allogeneic T-cell therapies from renewable pluripotent stem cells, also known as the ATO system, in a deal with the University of California, Los Angeles. In connection with this agreement, Kite entered into a sponsored research agreement with UCLA to support ongoing preclinical research for the ATO system. Two days later, Kite entered into a license agreement with the National Institute of Health for the license to its fully human anti-CD19 chimeric antigen... Read More »

LabCorp Ventures into Prenatal Testing

by | Jul 27, 2016 7:53 pm | Biotechnology, Laboratories, MRI & Dialysis | 0 comments

LabCorp (NYSE: LH), the world’s leading healthcare diagnostics company, has acquired Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM), a pioneer in non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for reproductive health, for a total purchase price of $371 million. In July of 2014, Sequenom purchased a license for non-invasive prenatal testing patents and applications from privately-held Mayo Medical Laboratories, and two months later it acquired intellectual property from privately-held Isis Innovation for non-invasive prenatal testing intellectual property. Today, Sequenom is the first laboratory to offer a clinically validated NIPT test (MaterniT®21), which has completed more than 500,000 tests to date. LabCorp’s most... Read More »

BioClinica Adds Compass Research

by | Jul 27, 2016 5:05 pm | Other Services, Private Equity | 0 comments

Private equity-backed Bioclinica Inc. expanded its clinical research offerings with the July 2016 acquisition of Compass Research, LLC, a Florida-based clinical research site network that has direct access to a number of specialized populations with neurodegenerative disorders and other diseases found in aging demographics. The acquisition solidifies Bioclinica’s position as a leading global research network, and the only one with investigator sites in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia. Compass Research’s state-of-the-art facilities in Orlando have supported more than 1,300 trials and contributed to the FDA approval of more than 80 biopharmaceutical products.... Read More »

Home Health & Hospice M&A Rebounds

by | Jul 26, 2016 8:28 pm | Home Health & Hospice | 0 comments

There’s nothing sleepy about the Home Health & Hospice sector. Through the end of July 2016, this market has seen 35 transactions, putting this year on track to beat 2015’s total of 51 deals. Eleven of these 35 deals disclosed prices, totaling approximately $610 million spent so far this year. Sixty-percent of 2016’s home health & hospice acquirers have been other home health & hospice companies, with the busiest players being LHC Group (NASDAQ: LHCG) and privately held Jordan Health Services with two and three acquisitions, respectively. Five separate private equity firms announced five acquisitions, and Kindred Healthcare (NYSE: KND) announced four acquisitions in this... Read More »