George Clinical announced on December 9 that it has entered into a sale agreement with Hillhouse, a Beijing-based global investment firm with deep experience in partnering with and supporting healthcare businesses.
The George Institute will hold a minority stake in George Clinical following the acquisition and will maintain a collaboration in applicable scientific areas such as in the Global Kidney Patients Trials Network.
BofA Securities acted as lead financial advisor on the transaction and Lazard Australia acted as co-advisor. Herbert Smith Freehills LLP acted as legal advisor on the transaction. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
George Clinical is a global clinical research organization founded in Asia-Pacific that provides the full range of clinical trial services to biopharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostic customers, for all trial phases, registration and post-marketing trials. It has more than 20 years of experience and more than 450 people managing more than 39 geographical locations throughout the Asia-Pacific region, United States and Europe.
Investing globally for more than 17 years, Hillhouse has funded more than 150 health care companies operating in more than 60 countries across a range of healthcare sub-sectors, including healthcare services, pharmaceutical development, medical devices, dental and eyecare.
According to the LevinPro HC database, this marks the 39th transaction in the contract research organization (CRO) subsector. Approximately 72% of CRO acquisitions this year have involved private equity firms and/or their portfolio companies.
