General Electric Co health-care unit agreed to buy several life-science businesses from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. for about $1.06 billion, its third biopharmaceutical acquisition in as many years.
The deal with GE, expected to close early this year, includes Thermo Fisher’s cell-culture business, which includes media and serums used to manufacture medicines and vaccines. The businesses were put up for sale by Thermo Fisher late last year to expedite European approval of its pending $13.6 billion acquisition of Life Technologies Corp. , which Thermo Fisher agreed to buy in April.
For GE, the acquisition will broaden its life-science offerings and accelerate development of technologies for cell biology research, cell therapy and the manufacture of biological drugs. GE doesn’t manufacture pharmaceuticals but makes technologies and machines that produce drugs.
“It is a business that we have been expanding over the last several years,” said John Dineen, head of GE’s health-care business. GE’s biomanufacturing business accounts for $1 billion of GE’s $18 billion health-care business. “It is by far the fastest-growing and a very profitable segment,” he said.
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In the wake of GE’s 2003 acquisition of Amersham PLC, it has been building out its life-sciences operations. In 2011, GE acquired cellular-imaging supplier Applied Precision Inc. and last year bought Xcellerex Inc., which supplies manufacturing technology for the biopharmaceutical industry.
Mr. Dineen didn’t rule out more acquisitions in the life-sciences area, but noted that it is a small industry and assets don’t come up for sale frequently.
The three newly acquired businesses generated combined estimated revenue of approximately $250 million last year.
In the first nine months of last year, GE’s health-care business had $13 billion in revenue, down slightly from the same period a year earlier, while health-care profit for the period rose 5% to about $2 billion from the year-ago period.
Date: Jan. 6, 2014