Roche acquires IQuum in $450M deal

Posted on 04.8.2014 // Categories: Clinical Diagnostics

Los Angeles, CA April 8th 2014 – Roche announced Monday that it intends to pay $275M upfront for IQuum, a privately held molecular diagnostics (MDx) company. An additional $175M will depend on product-related milestones.

The acquisition gives Roche access to the Liat (laboratory-in-a-tube) Analyzer, a point-of-care (POC) MDx system.

Executive at both companies highlighted the following in a statement released yesterday: “With IQuum, we further strengthen our MDx offerings with cutting-edge technology and products that serve the POC segment. Patients will benefit from on-the-spot and accurate diagnoses, which will allow healthcare professionals to make rapid, informed treatment decisions in flexible settings,” said Roland Diggelmann, COO of Roche Diagnostics. Shuqi Chen, CEO and founder of IQuum added: “We are very excited to continue developing innovative molecular diagnostics solutions as part of the Roche Molecular Diagnostics team. Roche is the ideal company to deliver on the promise of our POC MDx technology. We are fully committed to the continued success of IQuum’s employees, products and pipeline.”

Continued Interest in POC instruments

This acquisition follows a deal of similar magnitude when bioMerieux finalized its acquisition of BioFire for $450M in January this year (deal originally announced in September 2013). BioFire is expected to generate ~$80-85M in sales in 2014.

Currently, the majority of MDx testing is occurring in “centralized” settings, in hospital central labs or commercial labs such as LabCorp or Quest. Companies like IQuum or BioFire offer technologies that are more amenable to testing in more decentralized locations (e.g., sample-to-answer capabilities, faster turnaround time in the case of IQuum’s Liat analyzer), closer to the point of care. For example, the Liat Analyzer offers CE-marked and FDA cleared Influenza A/B assays with results in as little as 20 minutes.

Spanning the spectrum

This acquisition is expected to consolidate Roche’s pole position in the MDx space. Over the last decade, the company managed to build a $1.2B+ MDx franchise (excluding applied science revenues). With the IQuum acquisition, Roche will be able to offer MDx platforms across the throughput continuum, from the highest throughput to POC.

Indeed, in May 2013, the company announced its intention to launch its next generation of PCR-based systems, the COBAS 6800 and 8800 in 2014. The COBAS 6800 and 8800 will have a turnaround time of ~3 hours and be able to process 300 and 1,000 tests in an eight hour shift, respectively. These instruments will initially focus on the virology testing market.

For more information on the MDx market, please consider our MDx report.

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Author: Stephane Budel, Partner at DeciBio, LLC

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Disclaimer: Companies listed above might be DeciBio clients and/or customers