Irish clinical diagnostics company Trinity Biotech has acquired the blood bank screening and certain molecular assets of UK-based personalized medicine and clinical diagnostics firm Lab21, the companies said today.
The total cost of the acquisition was approximately $7.5 million, the companies said. The acquired business generates annual revenues of approximately $4 million, of which $3.5 million is generated from hemaggluttination- and antibody-based tests for syphilis, and the remainder from an immunoassay-based malaria screening product.
According to Lab21, the acquisition also includes assets the company originally acquired from Myconostica in 2011. These assets included methods for extracting fungal DNA from human samples and nucleic acid-based assays to detect Aspergillus and Pneumocystis jirovecii, which provided Lab21 at the time with its first molecular assays.
In 2011, Lab21 and BD Diagnostics announced a collaboration to develop a molecular diagnostic assay to detect Aspergillus fungal infections using the BD Max system (PCR Insider 8/4/2011). Also, earlier this year Lab21 struck a deal with Cooperative Diagnostics to use that company's bioinformatics capabilities and real-time PCR chemistries to develop molecular assays for oncology and infectious diseases (PCR Insider 1/26/2012).
Those agreements were made through Lab21's clinical services branch, which Lab21 said today will remain a part of its operations.
Lab21 also has an ongoing agreement with IntegraGen to develop a microRNA assay designed to improve colorectal cancer patient outcomes (PCR Insider 2/28/13 and current issue).