PE Firms Go in Big for Dental Deals

PE Firms Go in Big for Dental Deals

Buying dental practices has been a competitive sport for a few years now, especially among private equity firms. Eighteen deals for dental practices have been announced through July 20 this year (no prices, of course). In all of 2017,  30 deals for dental practices were announced, with the buyers either private equity firms getting in on the action, or making add-on acquisitions. Last year’s consolidations have become large platforms today. One example is Western Dental Group, a portfolio company of New Mountain Capital since 2012, which has been cobbling together a California base focused on pediatric and family dental practices. In 2017, Western Dental added 14 Smile Wide offices... Read More »
Specialty CROs Are the Latest Trend in Services Targets

Specialty CROs Are the Latest Trend in Services Targets

Contract research organizations (CROs) were huge targets in 2017, with four of the sector’s 10 biggest deals bringing in $22.9 billion, combined. The CRO market has cooled in 2018, but interesting new trends pop up now and then. The latest is the trend toward specialty CROs, which focus on specific areas such as diseases of the central nervous system. In one week in July, two such CROs have traded hands. The first, on July 9, was Oculos Clinical Research, a CRO based in Tampa, Florida that focuses on ophthalmology. Private equity firm Point Guard Partners was exiting, and Iuvo Bioscience, a portfolio company of Tartan Holdings, was investing. Iuvo Bioscience, based in Rush, New... Read More »

CROs Are Back, Many with Specialties

We’ve documented the increase in biotechnology acquisitions and license deals by pharmaceutical companies in previous posts. But the impact of pharma’s move away from in-house R&D has benefited other sectors of the healthcare industry, particularly clinical research organizations (CROs). For those outside the technology side of healthcare, CROs provide outsourced research services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries on a contract basis. Through mid-November, we’ve seen an increase of 325% in deal volume for CROs, compared with the year before. In 2015, just five deals for these targets were announced. So far this year, 17 are on the... Read More »