A Manchester-headquartered MedTech company listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market is set to be acquired for £16.7 million.
The board of Yourgene has recommended that shareholders accept an offer from Novacyt UK which represents a premium of approximately 167.7% to its closing share price on Friday.
Yourgene, which also has bases in Taipei, Singapore, the US and Canada, enables the delivery of genomic medicine, working in partnership with global leaders in DNA technology to advance diagnostic science.
It primarily develops, manufactures and commercialises simple and accurate molecular diagnostic and screening solutions for reproductive health and precision medicine.
Yourgene’s portfolio of in vitro diagnostic products includes non-invasive prenatal tests for Down’s Syndrome and other genetic disorders, Cystic Fibrosis screening tests, invasive rapid aneuploidy tests and DPYD genotyping assays.
Novacyt UK is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Novacyt, an international diagnostics business delivering a broad portfolio of in vitro and molecular diagnostic tests for a wide range of infectious diseases, enabling faster, more accurate, accessible testing to improve healthcare outcomes.
Lyn Rees, CEO of Yourgene, welcomed the offer. “The prospect and scale of what the new enlarged group could bring to our customers, employees and other stakeholders is exciting given the complimentary fit of both businesses,” he said.
“Whilst the two companies work within the same molecular diagnostic space, they both bring distinctive strengths and are focused in different market segments, which opens up further opportunities for growth.”
https://businesscloud.co.uk/medtech-50-uks-most-innovative-medical-technology-creators/
Novacyt will pay a £6.5m contingent liability due to Life Technologies Limited, agreed by Yourgene during a corporate and commercial restructure of its relationship with that company in 2019.
“We are delighted to announce this recommended offer for Yourgene,” said James McCarthy, acting CEO of Novacyt. “We regard Yourgene as a highly respected company with a world class team of employees that offers differentiated solutions to customers.
“We consider Novacyt and Yourgene to be highly complementary and expect the combination of the two businesses to benefit stakeholders of both Novacyt and Yourgene.”