Sartorius Completes $825-M Buy of Select Danaher’s Businesses
Sartorius has closed its $825-million acquisition of select life-science businesses of Danaher Corporation, a Washington, D.C.-headquartered science and technology company. Danaher divested the businesses to satisfy regulatory requirements as part of its $21.4-billion acquisition of GE Healthcare Life Sciences, which was completed in late March (March 2020).
The businesses acquired by Sartorius generated revenue of approximately $170 million in 2019 and cover various laboratory and bioprocessing technologies. Sartorius completed the closing on April 30, 2020 after receiving the required regulatory approvals. Sartorius is proceeding with integration of the acquired businesses into the two divisions of the Sartorius Group.
Danaher’s FortéBio business acquired by Sartorius for label-free biomolecular characterization includes protein-analysis instruments, biosensors, and reagents that are used in drug discovery and will be integrated into the Bioanalytics Unit within the Sartorius Lab Products & Services Division. The products are based on biolayer interferometry technology and perform real-time analysis of various biomolecular interactions. FortéBio employs approximately 200 people worldwide, has production sites in Fremont, California and Shanghai, China, and accounts for close to half of the revenue generated by the acquired businesses.
With the chromatography systems and resins business acquired, Sartorius is expanding its portfolio in downstream processing in its Bioprocess Solutions Division. This business acquired encompasses both reusable and single-use equipment, columns, and resins. The business also includes stainless-steel hollow-fiber and single-use technology tangential-flow-filtration systems and single-use flow kits. Also acquired was Danaher’s SoloHill business covering microcarrier technology and particle-validation standards used in cell cultures and other bioprocesses. Together, these various businesses employ approximately 100 people at sites in the following locations: Portsmouth, UK.; Cergy, France; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Hopkinton, Massachusetts.
The former GE Healthcare Life Sciences acquired by Danaher is now called Cytiva. Cytiva is operating as a stand-alone operating company within Danaher’s Life Sciences segment. Cytiva has nearly 7,000 employees and operations in 40 countries with sales of approximately $3.3 billion. Cytiva is a provider of instruments, consumables, and software that support the research, discovery, process development and manufacturing workflows of biopharmaceuticals. The business is comprised of process chromatography hardware and consumables, cell-culture media, single-use technologies, development instrumentation and consumables, and services.
