NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Thermo Fisher Scientific said this week it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its Cole-Parmer channel business to private equity firm GTCR for $480 million in cash. Cole-Parmer, part of Thermo Fisher's Laboratory Products and Services segment, provides fluid handling, test and measurement, and electrochemistry products and services. It has 400 employees worldwide and recorded $230 million in revenues last year. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter and is anticipated to have no material impact on Thermo Fisher's adjusted EPS.
PGXL Laboratories has received clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration to use its PerMIT:Warfarin companion informatics software as a Class II medical device to conduct clinical trials. The clearance allows the Louisville, Ky.-based firm to enroll up to 720 subjects in the trials, which will determine the safety and effectiveness of the software. PerMIT:Warfarin is a decision support tool that analyzes genetic and other patient data for use by physicians in making decisions about warfarin dosing and monitoring.
Separation science firm Phenomenex is spinning out Neoteryx, a company focused on biological sampling. Phenomenex has transferred the Volumetric Absorptive Microsampling technology and related intellectual property to Neoteryx, which will begin manufacturing products for collecting, handling, and analyzing biological fluids. Neoteryx's first product release is the Mitra Microsampling Device, which collects 10 microliters of fluid in seconds without volumetric blood hematocrit bias.
Pathology service provider CBLPath has launched its new cytogenetics division. Based out of CBLPath's headquarters in Rye Brook, NY, and licensed through New York, the division initially is focusing on hematologic cancers with plans of expanding to include tests for other conditions.
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine has formed a new department of genetics, genomics, and informatics on the Memphis campus. The department will start with five core faculty with primary appointments and plans to offer joint appointments in other departments, colleges, campuses, and institutions, including St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the University of Memphis. Robert Williams, the UT-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor's Chair in Computational Genomics, will serve as the department's founding chair.
Response Genetics' stockholders last week approved an amendment to increase the number of authorized shares of the firm's common stock to 70 million shares from 50 million shares.
StemCells said that it has closed the sale of a combination of stock and warrants to two undisclosed institutional biotech investors, netting proceeds of approximately $18.7 million. The firm, which had proposed the sale earlier this week, sold 11,299,435 units to the investors.
Each unit consists of one share of common stock and a warrant to purchase 0.85 of a share of common stock at an offering price of $1.77 per unit. The warrants will initially be exercisable six months from the date of issuance at an exercise price of $2.17 per share and will expire at the close of business on Aug. 17, 2015.
In Brief This Week is a Friday column containing news items that our readers may have missed during the week.