NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Avant Diagnostics announced today that it has completed its previously announced acquisitions of Amarantus Diagnostics and protein analysis services provider Theranostics Health.
In January, Scottsdale, Arizona-based Avant inked a deal to merge with Amarantus Diagnostics, a subsidiary of therapeutics developer Amarantus Bioscience. The arrangement joins Amarantus' research-use-only assays for multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease with Avant's upcoming microarray-based ovarian cancer diagnostic OvaDx.
Under the terms of that arrangement, Avant acquired all outstanding shares of Amarantus in exchange for 80 million shares of Avant stock, with additional shares to be issued upon certain undisclosed milestones.
Two months later, Avant and Amarantus announced that they had signed a letter of intent to add privately held Theranostics to the merger, which would give the combined company a CLIA lab to support its pipeline of diagnostics, as well as Theranostics' TheraLink assay for identifying known drug targets of breast cancer therapeutics.
Under the terms of the deal, Avant acquired the assets and operations of Theranostics in exchange for 25 million shares of its stock, which was trading at $.32 per share on the OTC Bulletin Board on Thursday morning.
The stock issued under the two transactions are subject to an 18-month lockup, with certain exceptions.
"The closing of these acquisitions marks a pivotal moment for Avant," Avant President and CEO Gregg Linn said in a statement. "We have simultaneously expanded our product pipeline … [and] have acquired the appropriate CLIA/CAP infrastructure required to commercialize our pipeline while also gaining access to a growing pharma services revenue stream with the very same sales, distribution channels, commercial relationships, and overall scientific focus required for successful introduction of our additional proprietary assets to the pharma services market."