Bio-Techne to Acquire Exosome Dx for Up to $575M

NEW YORK (360Dx) – Bio-Techne announced after the close of the market on Monday that it has reached an agreement to acquire Exosome Diagnostics for up to $575 million.

Under the terms of the deal, expected to close in July or early August, Bio-Techne will pay $250 million in cash up front, and up to an additional $325 million contingent on the achievement of certain future milestones. The company said it will finance the deal through a combination of cash on hand and a revolving line of credit facility it anticipates obtaining prior to the closing of the deal.

Exosome, which is based in Waltham, Massachusetts, markets a urine-based test called ExoDx Prostate (IntelliScore) to help clinicians determine whether a patient with an ambiguous PSA test needs a prostate biopsy. The firm has about 200 filed patents and applications for the technology and to further the development of diagnostic tools for pathologies with difficult or no current diagnostic solutions, including for prostate, bladder, kidney, breast, glioblastoma, and other cancers.

William Blair analyst Amanda Murphy said in a research note, "Ultimately, there is a significant market opportunity if Techne can leverage Exosome's technology to interpret complex gene expression data and find early predictors of disease progression."

In a statement, Bio-Techne President and CEO Charles Kummeth called the deal a "very strategic acquisition as we also expand into the [chimeric antigen receptor] T cell marketplace, leveraging our growing critical mass in cell culture-focused product lines."

Exosome Dx CEO John Boyce added that the ExoDx Prostate (IntelliScore) test "is the first of many diagnostic tests we have in our pipeline and we remain confident that the underlying technology of exosome- and cfDNA-based analysis, along with the artificial intelligence tools we have developed, can deconvolute complex gene expression data and find diagnostic signatures that are early predictors of disease progression."

Recently, the company said that it achieved ISO 13485:2016 certification for its Munich location. In 2016, Exosome Dx launched its first ever lab instrument, a label-free automated system for detecting exosomal proteins directly from blood and other body fluids. Earlier this year, the company announced the first placements of that platform called Shahky. 

Headquartered in Minneapolis, Bio-Techne acquired Advanced Cell Diagnostics for $325 million in 2016, launching it into the genomics space. Earlier this year, the firm said that it planned to create a new division for the genomic technology acquired with the ACD deal.

In late 2016, Bio-Techne also made a $43 million strategic investment in Astute Medical, which was acquired by BioMérieux two months ago.

This is the second acquisition announced this week. On Monday, Vela Diagnostics said it signed an agreement to buy Great Basin Scientific for an undisclosed amount.