NEW YORK – NanoString Technologies said Sunday evening that it has reached a binding agreement with healthcare investment firm Patient Square Capital, which intends to acquire substantially all NanoString assets for $220 million pending bankruptcy court approval.
The agreement is part of a sale process under Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code that will be subject to compliance with agreed-upon and bankruptcy court-approved bidding procedures allowing for the submission of higher or otherwise better offers, NanoString said. Under the terms of the agreement, Patient Square will serve as the so-called "stalking horse" bidder.
Additionally, the acquisition is subject to bankruptcy court approval and customary closing conditions, the company noted, including the expiration of the 15-day waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.
NanoString said a court hearing to approve the stalking horse bid and bidding procedures will take place on March 28, 2024. The company is requesting that the deadline for competing offers be set for April 12, 2024, and that a hearing to approve the sale take place on April 22, 2024.
"This agreement with Patient Square provides continuity for our scientific customers and employees, and represents an important step in our financial restructuring," NanoString President and CEO Brad Gray said in a statement. "This agreement with Patient Square and our recent victory in the European patent court should ensure that our leading-edge platforms for spatial biology and gene expression will be available for many years to come."
NanoString filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early February, a few months after it was ordered to pay damages to 10x Genomics in a US patent infringement suit. The firm subsequently secured $47.5 million in loan funding.
Last month, the European Unified Patent Court (UPC) Court of Appeal overturned a preliminary injunction against NanoString that was previously issued by the UPC Munich local division in September, allowing the company to immediately resume sales of all CosMx Spatial Molecular Imager (SMI) products in 16 impacted UPC member countries.