GE Acquires Strategic Assets from TFS

Under a new agreement GE Healthcare is to acquire Thermo Fisher’s HyClone™ cell culture media and sera, and gene modulation and magnetic beads businesses for approximately $1.06 billion.  The acquisition will allow GE to expand its offering of technologies for the discovery and manufacturing of innovative new medicines, vaccines and diagnostics in its growing Life Sciences business. 

The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approvals, is anticipated to close in the first part of 2014. 

John Dineen, President and CEO, GE Healthcare said, “Life Sciences is one of our strongest and fastest-growing business areas, driven by the world’s demand for improved diagnostics and new, safer medicines.  Combining GE’s engineering expertise with our capabilities in life sciences is already bringing great benefits to industry, research and patients.  This deal makes a good business even better and will help us realize our vision of bringing better healthcare to more people at lower cost.”

Kieran Murphy, President and CEO of GE Healthcare’s Life Sciences division said, “We look forward to the HyClone cell culture and other businesses joining the GE family.  They are a great fit with our key areas of focus, and bring exciting new technologies, enhanced manufacturing capabilities as well as a great group of talented people to help grow our business.”

“In addition to providing us with new approaches to drug discovery and biomedical research,” Murphy said, “this acquisition is a significant step forward for our customers in biopharmaceutical manufacturing.  They will benefit immediately from an expanded range of “start-to-finish” technologies that will help them improve product yields and reduce time-to-market. By expanding our production facilities to three continents, we will be able to offer the biopharmaceutical industry greater confidence in the security of supply of cell culture media and sera, a key part of their production process.”

The three acquired businesses generated combined annual revenues of approximately $250 million in 2013.