Under the terms of the agreement, Vancouver, Canada-based ImmunoPrecise will purchase U-Protein’s equipment, staff and client base for a combined cash and stock value of €6.83m ($10.32m).
ImmunoPrecise, which offers antibody engineering and production services including the development of mouse and rat monoclonal, and rabbit recombinant monoclonal antibodies, will employ U-Protein’s technologies to manufacture microgram quantities of ImmunoPrecise-engineered antibodies.
U-Protein provides mammalian recombinant proteins and antibodies for clients’ research and pre-clinical applications, and holds the rights to proprietary expression technology used in antibody production.
“U-Protein Express can take [our] antibodies and grow them in their cell lines to delivery gram quantities to our customers,” said CEO Tom D’Ozario.
“For many of our clients, this expression of antibodies is a natural step in product development,” he added.
New clients, new market
D’Orazio told us he anticipates the acquisition will attract business, and diversify the firm’s revenue base.
“We have already seen a company become more interested in using us for contract research, once they found out we could be a one-stop-shop for more services,” he told us.
The acquisition of Utrecht, The Netherlands-based U-Protein, enables ImmunoPrecise to expand into the European marketplace, D’Ozario added.
“We foresee both commercial and technical expansion opportunities,” he said.