GE Healthcare announced today that it will acquire Clarient, Inc. for $580 million. Clarient is a leading provider of comprehensive, cancer diagnostic laboratory services used for the characterization, assessment and treatment of cancer.
GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company and Clarient, Inc. announced today that it will acquire Clarient in a deal valued at $580 million. This acquisition gives GE Healthcare an entrée into the global high growth cancer molecular diagnostics market.
This global segment is expected to grow from $15 billion in 2009 to over $47 billion by 2015, according to a September 2010 market research report by BCC Research.
The strategic rationale for the acquisition can best be understood by looking at the combination of Clarient’s innovative and proprietary technologies in cancer assessment and companion biomarkers with GE Healthcare’s strengths in diagnostic imaging. This synergistic acquisition is expected to accelerate the development of new integrated tools for the diagnosis and characterization of cancer.
This strategy is similar to one executed by one of GE’s major imaging competitors, Siemens AG. Siemens went on a diagnostic spending spree acquiring Bayer diagnostics, Diagnostic Products Corporation and Dade Behring.
The moves by Siemens were designed to develop an integrated clinical work flow–oriented solution by combining in vitro diagnostics, in vivo diagnostics, and healthcare information technology.
GE Healthcare attempted to follow with a proposed acquisition of Abbott diagnostics, but the deal did not go forward. GE Healthcare’s acquisition of Clarient is the latest of several deals in the very active clinical diagnostic and life science market segments and more can be expected to come.
For more information on the companies mentioned above, the high growth molecular diagnostic and cancer segments of the $55 billion dollar global clinical diagnostics market, please contact your GLG representative and schedule an individual consult today.
GL Group