NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Transplant diagnostics company CareDx announced after the close of the market on Thursday that it has agreed to acquire organ transplant patient tracking software provider OTTR Complete Transplant Management for $16 million in cash.
CareDx said it will fund the transaction with cash on hand. The company reported in early March that it ended the 2018 fiscal year with $64.6 million in cash and cash equivalents. For the full year 2019, OTTR's revenue is projected to be $6 million to $8 million, and it is expected to report a breakeven net income. CareDx anticipates that the deal will close in May.
Omaha, Nebraska-based OTTR provides software for transplant patient management, which is currently used in more than 60 transplant centers in the US, CareDx said. The company's products enable integration with electronic medical records systems, such as Cerner and Epic, providing patient surveillance management tools and outcomes data to transplant centers.
"The integration of OTTR solutions into transplant center EMR systems will simplify the logistics of ordering AlloSure or AlloMap testing for patients," CareDx CEO Peter Maag said in a statement. "This acquisition marks the beginning of CareDx's leadership in transplant artificial intelligence as we integrate surveillance management tools and provide a solution for individualized patient outcomes."
OTTR CoCEO and Chief Marketing Officer Mike Donnell added that the firm's solid organ transplant patient tracking and data management tools will "simplify the ordering process for CareDx's leading surveillance tests, optimize transplant patient safety, increase efficiency, and facilitate compliance."
CareDx — which markets a blood-based donor-derived cell-free DNA (dd-cfDNA) test for the assessment of transplant organ health called AlloSure — recently expanded the assay from kidney to lung transplant patients. The firm made AlloSure available to lung transplant patients in February under a compassionate use program, while it conducts clinical studies to make AlloSure Lung an official part of its transplant diagnostic product portfolio.
The company also markets a heart transplant diagnostic test called AlloMap, and launched a comprehensive rejection surveillance diagnostic for heart transplant recipients in April 2018 called HeartCare that combined AlloMap with AlloSure for the heart. CareDx said the combined product would provide a holistic view into the health of heart transplant recipients and give clinicians a clearer picture of patients' immune system activity and graft health.
In an interview with GenomeWeb in February, Maag said there are also several other settings in which the company is exploring the utility of dd-cfDNA testing, including pancreatic transplantation and bone marrow transplantation to detect graft-versus-host disease.