Date: Jul 03, 2014 Source: (
click here to go to the source)
Bio-Techne said Wednesday it closed on its $60 million cash acquisition of Novus Biologicals, a deal designed to expand the buyer's antibody business while complementing its operations in developing and manufacturing purified proteins.
Novus maintains portfolios of both outsourced and in-house developed antibodies and other reagents among its offerings of more than 250,000 products, delivered via its own digital commerce platform. That's more than 10 times the 24,000 products in Bio-Techne's portfolio, which during the 2013 fiscal year accounted for about $311 million in net sales.
Novus is the second company to be acquired in less than a month by Bio-Techne. On June 17, Bio-Techne shelled out $300 million for ProteinSimple, whose Western blot products are among its offerings of systems and consumables designed to simplify protein analysis workflows.
Bio-Techne said the Novus deal will enable it to access antibodies for potential inclusion in new assays and kits, as well as for instruments the acquiring company said it intends to bring to market after it completes the deal.
Bio-Techne also said it expects to draw upon Novus' digital marketing capability and management team as it expands its offerings—notably cytokines and growth factors, antibodies, immunoassays and biologically active small molecule compounds, all sold to biomedical researchers and clinical research laboratories.
Bio-Techne is the common brand name under which Techne brought its R&D Systems, BiosPacific, Tocris Biosciences, Boston Biochem and Bionostics products earlier this year. The company is headquartered in Minneapolis and has more than 1,000 employees worldwide.
"This acquisition is consistent with our mission to expand our products offering and ensure that our customers are being served in the most complete fashion with the best quality reagents," Bio-Techne President and CEO Charles R. Kummeth said in a statement.
Added Novus' CEO Karen Padgett: "The combined business will represent a unique one-stop-shop for our world-wide customers."
Bio-Techne said it will retain Padgett and another Novus executive, Dave Eansor, who serves as svp, corporate development.
Mainsail Partners, a growth equity firm based in San Francisco, has been the sole investor in Novus since 2008.
