Myriad Genetics Inc, Salt Lake City, has acquired Sividon Diagnostics, Köln, Germany, for an upfront payment of €35 million (approximately $56 million), with the potential for an additional €15 million (approximately $17 million) if performance-based milestones are met.
Myriad expects the deal to be neutral to both revenue and earnings in fiscal year 2017.
Mark C. Capone, Myriad Genetic Laboratories.
“Sividon brings to Myriad the best-in-class breast cancer prognostic test and strengthens our market-leading oncology portfolio of high-value personalized medicine products,” says Mark C. Capone, president and CEO of Myriad Genetic Laboratories. “The EndoPredict test will be the foundational product of our newly initiated kit-based strategy, allowing Myriad to leverage its global oncology distribution to bring this important test to patients worldwide.”
“We are excited to be integrated with the global leader and pioneer in personalized medicine,” says Christoph Petry, CEO of Sividon Diagnostics. “Myriad has the reimbursement, regulatory, and commercial expertise to make this product very successful, especially as we seek distribution in the United States and broader reimbursement coverage in Europe.”
Myriad aims to augment its existing oncology product line through Sividon’s core EndoPredict product, a kit-based RNA expression test that evaluates 12 genes to assess the aggressiveness of breast cancer on a molecular level. Ultimately, the test is designed to help patients decide whether to forgo chemotherapy.
The test is currently CE marked to be performed on the Siemens Versant instrument. However, Myriad expects to transition the product to the QuantStudio platform from Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, Mass, as a key step in its international kit strategy.
Myriad believes the global market opportunity for EndoPredict is greater than $600 million, with the majority of the market existing in major European countries, Canada, and the United States. According to Myriad, the market is less than 25% penetrated on a global basis, and the company expects EndoPredict to benefit from a significant expansion in reimbursement in the coming years.
Sividon Diagnostics was spun out of Siemens Healthineers in July 2010 as part of a management buyout.
At the end of its fiscal third quarter, Myriad had cash and cash equivalents of $286 million on hand.
For more information, visit Myriad Genetics.
