AMRI announced that it has acquired all the outstanding equity interests of Whitehouse Laboratories, a leading provider of testing services that includes chemical and material analysis, method development and validation and quality control verification services to the pharmaceutical, medical device and personal care industries.
Total consideration is $54 million in cash, and an additional $2 million in shares of AMRI common stock contingent upon Whitehouse Labs achieving certain 2015 targets.
“We are very pleased to acquire Whitehouse Labs, extending AMRI’s analytical services expertise and offerings, a critical function for all aspects of pharmaceutical development and manufacturing,” said William S. Marth, AMRI’s president and chief executive officer. “With the proliferation of ever-tightening standards in the life sciences sector and mounting concern regarding quality and safety of pharmaceutical products and medical devices, Whitehouse Labs meets the increasingly complex needs of customers we service and will augment our discovery, development and manufacturing services nicely.”
“For Whitehouse Labs, joining with AMRI validates our company’s reputation and success and will extend our ability to address customers’ analytical and testing needs, which is a rapidly expanding area of outsourcing within the life sciences industry,” said Brian Mulhall, Co-Founder of Whitehouse Labs. “Favorable dynamics are increasing the trend among biopharmaceutical manufacturers to outsource testing services and our capabilities in analytical testing and diverse client base are highly complementary to AMRI. We are very pleased to be joining the AMRI team and look forward to working together to achieve our common goals.”
Whitehouse Labs, based in Lebanon, New Jersey, operates a highly regarded analytical and testing business with 2015 estimated revenue of approximately $11 million and 2015 estimated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $6 million, implying a purchase price multiple of approximately 9 times 2015 adjusted EBITDA. Whitehouse Labs will continue to operate independently within AMRI’s DDS segment. Adjusted EBITDA excludes any deal related costs or purchase accounting impacts.
Whitehouse Labs offers a comprehensive array of testing solutions for life sciences from materials and excipients, container qualification and container closure integrity testing, routine analytical chemistry, drug delivery systems and device qualification programs, packaging, distribution, and stability and storage programs.
Increased government regulation and complexity of testing, combined with mounting demand for independent verification and pressure to reduce fixed laboratory costs are all factors that are increasing the trend for outsourced analytical services. Specifically, new industry protocols for container closure integrity testing (CCIT), conducted in lieu of sterility testing as a component of the stability protocol for sterile products, have been proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. As a recognized leader in container closure integrity and qualification testing, Whitehouse Labs is well positioned to support this expanding demand. Whitehouse Labs offers state-of-the-art solutions, including in-depth method development and validation, and is believed to be the only outsourced provider housing all of the major modern leak detection technologies in one facility. Whitehouse Labs scientists are recognized thought leaders in container closure integrity testing and are currently working with the FDA on improving the knowledge and effectiveness of CCIT guidelines.
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