NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Protea Biosciences today announced that it has entered into an agreement to buy the research services firm VivoPharm for cash and equity.
According to the firm's 8-K filed with the SEC on April 6, Protea will acquire all shares of Hershey, Pa.-based VivoPharm and its subsidiaries for $11.2 million, including $5.4 million in cash and $5.7 million in the form of 570,053 shares of new Series A stock. Upon completion of the deal, VivoPharm will operate as a business unit of Protea, the firm said in a statement.
Finalizing the acquisition is subject to certain conditions: Protea must raise at least $10 million in debt or equity financing.
"VivoPharm has developed a large standard of care reference database," Protea CEO Stephen Turner said in a statement. "We believe that this critical asset, together with Protea's capacity to rapidly generate large molecular databases on tissue samples and display the data in 2D and 3D localized molecular imaging when applied, will significantly improve the R&D and drug development processes."
Protea said it expects the transaction to close by the end of the first half of 2015.