US-based health technology company Thermo Fisher Scientific has completed its acquisition of PPD, a contract research organization (CRO), for $17.4bn.
The company has initially signed an agreement with PPD, in April this year.
PPD provides a wide range of clinical research drug development, laboratory and lifecycle management services for biopharma and biotech companies, across 50 countries.
It has more than 26,000 employees and has generated $4.7bn revenue in 2020.
As part of the acquisition, Thermo Fisher will also assume PPD’s net debt worth nearly $3bn, which will be retired with the closing of the transaction.
Thermo Fisher Scientific chairman, president and CEO Marc Casper said: “We are very excited to officially welcome our PPD colleagues to Thermo Fisher Scientific.
“Expanding our value proposition for our biotech and pharmaceutical customers with the addition of PPD’s leading clinical research services advances our work in bringing life-changing therapies to market, benefitting patients around the world.”
With the addition of PPD, Thermo Fisher is enabled to provide a complete suite of services, including discovery, clinical trial logistics, development and manufacturing of drug products.
The company expects the transaction to add $1.50 to its adjusted earnings per share in 2022 and will provide the details of the 2021 impact, in early 2022.
It estimates total synergies to be around $125m by three years after closing, comprising 75m related to cost synergies and $50m from revenue-related synergies.
In January this year, Thermo Fisher signed an agreement with Mesa Biotech, a molecular diagnostic company, to acquire the latter for around $450m in cash.
US-based Mesa Biotech has developed and commercialised a PCR-based rapid point-of-care testing platform for SARS-CoV-2, Influenza A and B, RSV and Strep A.
In the same month, Thermo Fisher has closed the acquisition of Henogen, a Belgium-based viral vector manufacturing business of Groupe Novasep, for around €725m in cash.
