CROs Are Back in Demand
Last year was not kind to contract research organizations (CROs). CROs typically provide discovery and development services to companies in the Medical Device, Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology sectors, conducting clinical trials and providing a wealth of R&D support. Demand for their services have seen a gradual rise over the last decade for a variety of reasons. An increasing number of start-ups have popped up in the Biotechnology sector, and they don’t have the resources or infrastructure that major players would have to oversee the complex R&D needed to bring a drug to market, so they often outsource much of that task to CROs. Second, big pharma and biotech are increasingly... Read More »
ICON Acquires PRA Health Sciences
The contract research organization giant ICON plc (NASDAQ: ICLR) is growing its market reach through the acquisition of PRA Health Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRAH). The deal is valued at $12 billion, with the per share merger consideration consisting of $80 in cash and 0.4125 shares of ICON stock. The consideration represents an approximately 30% premium to PRA’s closing price as of February 23, 2021. The transaction value comes out to around 3.77x revenue and 20.2x EBITDA, annualized. PRA is one of the world’s leading global contract research organizations by revenue, providing outsourced clinical development and data solution services to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.... Read More »
Thermo Fisher Acquires Henogen S.A.
After a surprise collapse of its takeover bid for QIAGEN N.V. (NYSE: QGEN), Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO) is back with a new deal in 2021. Thermo Fisher is buying Henogen S.A. from Groupe Novasep SAS for approximately EUR 725 million ($877.5 million) in cash. Based in Belgium, Henogen S.A. is a viral vector manufacturing business that provides contract manufacturing services for vaccines and therapies to biotechnology companies and large biopharma customers. Groupe Novasep partners with a variety of industries to provide technically optimized and economical solutions for the life science industry. Henogen has two facilities and approximately 400 employees with substantial... Read More »
Syneos Health Buys Leading CRO Synteract
Is the market for contract research organizations on the rise again? After a slow year for CRO transactions, the new deal by Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ: SYNH) might signal a new turn in direction. Syneos Health, a fully-integrated biopharmaceutical solutions organization, announced last week it was acquiring Synteract Inc. from Amulet Capital Partners for $400 million. Synteract is a leading CRO that supports biotech and pharma companies across all phases of drug development. Synteract’s 700 employees across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Africa have supported more than 4,000 Phase 1-4 clinical trials across 26,000 sites in more than 60 countries. Amulet acquired Synteract in May... Read More »
CRO M&A Market in 2020 (So Far)
There haven’t been many deals targeting contract research organizations (CRO) in 2020, especially compared to previous years, which makes sense. Life science companies are all slowing down clinical trials (COVID-19 vaccine research excluded) to adhere to social distancing guidelines, meaning CRO services are just not in as high demand. For 2020, only 10% of deals in the Other Services sector have targeted a CRO company (14 deals). To put that in context, CROs were targeted in 15% (29 transactions) of deals in the Other Services sector for 2019, according to The 2020 Health Care Services Acquisition Report. There haven’t been many headline deals this year for the CRO market.... Read More »