NEW YORK – Trinity Biotech said Tuesday that it is acquiring Metabolomics Diagnostics for $1.3 million in cash, stock, and liabilities in a deal that will allow Trinity to commercialize a prognostic test for preeclampsia.
Dublin-based Trinity said that it is purchasing the Irish deep-tech company with about 270,000 Trinity Biotech American depositary shares with the balance of the consideration to be paid in cash and the assumption of liabilities. Through the deal, Trinity is gaining a mass spectrometry platform and machine learning-based bioinformatics, and the firm plans to rapidly commercialize County Cork, Ireland-based Metabolomics Diagnostics' PrePsia metabolomic test for preeclampsia risk as early as the 12th week of pregnancy. The firm plans to bring the test to the US market starting in 2025.
Trinity said that it expects to make limited investments into the development of the PrePsia test, which is already in a late stage of development. The firm will manufacture reagents for the test and offer it through the firm's New York State Department of Health-certified Immco lab.
"Trinity Biotech has the ideal manufacturing and regulatory expertise to bring our innovative maternal risk screening diagnostics platform to the market," Metabolomics CEO Robin Tuytten said in a statement. "Through Trinity Biotech’s US-based Immco reference laboratory, we look forward to accelerating the introduction of our potentially lifesaving preeclampsia risk screening technology to the US market and addressing the acute maternal health crisis while strengthening Trinity's internal diagnostic innovation pipeline."
Tuytten will become the director of Trinity's Metabolomics Diagnostics business following the acquisition.
Trinity President and CEO John Gillard added that the low-cost deal gives Trinity a proprietary, integrated diagnostics platform that combines advanced biomarker analysis with machine learning. The acquisition is structured to quickly become accretive to the firm, and Gillard added that Trinity has developed a broader strategy of combining its existing capabilities with cutting-edge technologies to help it address large-scale and urgent clinical issues.
Trinity noted that preeclampsia occurs in upward of 5 percent of pregnancies, and it can result in serious illness or death in the affected mothers and infants. It is typically diagnosed at 20 weeks of pregnancy through the determination of high blood pressure along with kidney function tests and blood work. About 30 percent of preeclampsia cases result in premature delivery.