PerkinElmer Makes its Biggest Buy Yet Forking Out $5.25 Billion for Latest Acquisition

PerkinElmer is on a hot streak, buying several companies in the past nine months. Since snagging Horizon Discovery for $383 million last November, the firm has acquired five more so far.

With the acquisition of Oxford Immunotec Global PLC for $591 million, PerkinElmer has had a solid start to 2021, entering the tuberculosis diagnostic market. Soon after, it picked up Nexcelom Bioscience for $260 million and Immunodiagnostic Systems Holdings PLC for $155 million.

In June, the company announced plans to further broaden its existing cell and gene research solutions by adding viral vector gene delivery leader SIRION Biotech GmbH to its buying spree. Just a month later, the Waltham, MA-based company, has now announced its biggest acquisition yet.

$5.25 Billion Acquisition

On July 26th, PerkinElmer entered into an agreement to acquire San Diego-based BioLegend in a cash and stock deal worth approximately $5.25 billion. BioLegend is a leading global provider of life science antibodies and reagents. With this massive acquisition, PerkinElmer is looking to establish itself as a leader in the market.

The company also announced its revenue for the second quarter of 2021, a whopping $1.228 billion as compared to the $812 million it made in the second quarter of 2020. In addition, its share, which stood at $74.80 in March 2020, has grown steadily to an all-time high of $182.23. The new acquisition will put PerkinElmer in a much better position to emulate these numbers.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to bring our technologies and innovative cultures together to create seamless solutions to push science and discovery forward. We believe joining our teams presents an incredible opportunity to accelerate discoveries that help life science researchers leverage ever-developing technologies and novel approaches to better understand and fight disease,” said Prahlad Singh, President, and CEO of PerkinElmer.

Opportunity for Growth

“We are very excited to join the PerkinElmer family. The combination will afford us the opportunity to continue to build on our two-decade foundation of innovative science and scale in new and highly attractive PerkinElmer areas such as clinical diagnostics and food safety testing. The BioLegend team is eager to enter this new chapter with PerkinElmer, furthering our mission of enabling legendary discovery from research to cure,” said Gene Lay, Founder, President, and CEO of BioLegend.

BioLegend, founded in 2002 by Gene Lay, has grown into a company with more than 700 employees. The privately held company provides cutting-edge antibodies and reagents for biomedical research encompassing therapeutic areas such as Immunology, Neuroscience, Cancer, Stem cells, and Clinical Products. It is estimated to bring in $380 million in revenue in 2022.

Upon acquisition, BioLegend will expand PerkinElmer’s existing life science franchise into new segments, an official statement read. BioLegend’s state-of-the-art campus in San Diego will become PerkinElmer’s global Center of Excellence (CoE) for research reagent content development for the combined company. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of this year.

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Author

Rajaneesh K. Gopinath