Replies to post #139921 on Biotech Values

[pcrutch]

re: Roche ILMN

GE Healthcare Acquires SeqWright

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – GE Healthcare today announced it has purchased contract research organization SeqWright for an undisclosed amount.

The deal, GE said, is expected to complement its Clarient business, allowing the molecular diagnostics firm to expand its clinical diagnostics offerings to include next-generation sequencing.

Based in Houston, SeqWright was founded in 1984 and provides nucleic acid sequencing and other genomics services.

"Combining the expertise and capabilities of the two companies will enable GE Healthcare to offer a substantially wider range of services to the biopharmaceutical, diagnostic, and research industries and eventually to patients and health care providers," Pascale Witz, president and CEO of GE Healthcare, medical diagnostics, said in a statement.

Clarient CEO Carrie Eglinton-Manner added, "The acquisition of a specialized laboratory with long-standing expertise in the sequencing field as well as an established customer base allows us immediate entry into this high-growth space, and is an ideal complement to Clarient's existing protein and gene expression profiling in support of pharmaceutical and in vitro diagnostic studies."

[biomaven0]

Pharma groups with more than half of their sales from such "non-pharmaceutical" areas trade at valuation premiums of about 15% to less diversified peers.

I think this is mostly a function of patent expirations - you apply a discount to current earnings that are due to vanish.

Of course to the extent that non-pharmaceutical areas don't have the same cliffs, a higher multiple is indeed justified.

Peter