Protea Biosciences Group announced today that it has entered into an agreement dated as of March 31, 2015 for the purchase of vivoPharm Pty Ltd. (“vivoPharm”), a global provider of pharmacology, toxicology and bioanalytical research services, with a portfolio of proprietary oncology models.
With facilities in Melbourne, Australia and Hershey, Pennsylvania, along with a sales office in Munich, Germany, upon completion of the acquisition vivoPharm will operate as a business unit of Protea.
Protea’s Chairman and CEO, Mr. Stephen Turner stated, “The combined company will offer a unique, proprietary suite of services and bioanalytic technologies for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. With the combination of our two companies, we are seamlessly integrating revolutionary molecular information technologies with world class oncology models and in vivo testing capabilities, to create new, unmatched and superior services for the preclinical pharmaceutical market.”
Dr. Ralf Brandt, founder and CEO of vivoPharm, said, “Joining forces with Protea provides a fantastic opportunity to build vivoPharm’s business, and provides a major point of differentiation from other preclinical research services. The opportunities to apply Protea’s mass spectrometry imaging workflows directly to in vivo animal studies represent a potential game-changer for the overall pharmaceutical and biotech R&D space.”
Mr. Turner also noted, “vivoPharm has developed a large standard of care reference database. We believe that this critical asset, together with Protea’s capacity to rapidly generate large molecular databases on tissue samples, and display the data in 2D and 3D localized molecular imaging when applied, will significantly improve the R&D and drug development processes. The combined companies will have the unique ability to improve the predictive values obtained in preclinical pharmaceutical research workflows. The combined companies will offer current and future clients the opportunity to remove costs earlier in the R&D cycle.”
Consummation of the vivoPharm acquisition is subject to certain conditions, including completion of the necessary financing by Protea.
Details of the terms for the acquisition are disclosed in Protea’s Form 8-K Current Report filed with the SEC on April 6, 2015. Subject to satisfaction of the closing conditions, it is anticipated that the transaction will close by the end of the first half of 2015.
