By Kirell Lakhman

Virginia-based Carilion Clinic's clinical lab subsidiary plans to merge with Spectrum Laboratory Network of North Carolina to create "one of the top-10 laboratory companies in the country in terms of size," and the resulting firm could be an acquisition target by Quest or LabCorp, according to a local news report.

The new company, which does not yet have a name, will serve 37 hospitals and 14,000 physicians in eight mid-Atlantic states, the Roanoke Times reported yesterday. It will employ more than 2,600 employees and is expected to generate more than $300 million in annual revenue.

Terms of the deal calls for Carilion to own 33 percent of the new company, the paper said. Approximately 900 Carilion Labs employees will keep their jobs.

Last December, Spectrum was acquired by the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. The merged company could be ripe for a takeover.

"I think in two to three years they're going to get sold to Quest or LabCorp, or they are going to become a public company," Jondavid Klipp, publisher of Laboratory Economics, was quoted as saying in the paper.

Both LabCorp and Quest have been saying in recent months that they plan acquisitions.

Carilion and Spectrum "each have an excellent reputation with clinicians for providing excellent clinical and anatomic pathology services, and we hope to continue to build on that reputation and bring the approach to other communities," Sean Traynor, general partner with Welsh Carson, in a statement.

According to the Roanoke Times, Carilion "had been looking for a buyer of its lab business since 2008." At that time, "discussions with one potential buyer didn't materialize," but Murphy "said that they continued to entertain options and that the deal with Welsh Carson turned out to be "'a very attractive option.'"

Carilion Labs was formed in 2005 and has seen revenue grow from $48.2 million in 2006 to $109.8 million in 2009, the paper said.

The new company will be jointly headquartered in Roanoke, Va., and Greensboro, NC. "As the company grows there may be the potential for new jobs, but the actual merger will not create new jobs," the paper reported.