Pall ($PLL), which has been supplying drug manufacturers with filtration equipment for a long time, has decided to broaden its place in the biopharma manufacturing equipment industry. The Port Washington, NY, company will add single-use bioreactors and supplies with a deal to buy a division of ATMI.
Pall will pay $185 million to get the ATMI LifeSciences business, including two locations in Belgium plus a shared facility in Minnesota. The unit makes custom-engineered, flexible packaging solutions, single-use storage systems, mixers and bioreactors for biologic drug manufacturing. ATMI said it expects the deal to close during the first quarter of 2014. Neither company said how many employees would be involved.
Danbury, CT-based ATMI confirmed in November it was looking at selling assets as it explored "strategic alternatives." That followed its third-quarter results, in which the company, whose emphasis is in microelectronics, reported an $8.6 million drop in revenues to about $100.2 million. It did report improved sales for its LifeSciences business of $12.3 million, up from $10.4 million in the same quarter last year. That resulted in an operating loss of $900,000 for the unit, compared with a loss of $2.1 million last year. Pall said it expects to net about $165 million after taxes from the sale.
Pall said the new line should add $20 million to $30 million in revenue in 2014. "This acquisition immediately strengthens our offering and broadens our already extensive portfolio of advanced solutions for biopharmaceutical customers," Pall CEO Larry Kingsley said in a statement.
The deal comes amid a major expansion in the biologics manufacturing arena. On Monday, GE Healthcare ($GE) said it would pay just over $1 billion in a deal to buy three businesses from Thermo Fisher Scientific ($TMO) that will expand its footprint in supplying the industry with equipment and services in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and research.
- here's the Pall announcement
- and the ATMI release
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