Pharma BD Deal Intelligence
A modest bolt-on: Inverness paid about 1.42 million shares plus $8.8 million cash for Binax, a respiratory diagnostics player with roughly $20.0 million in 2004 sales—cheap by the numbers, but the source data itself flags the announcement and merger-agreement dates don't line up.
Outcome grade pending — assessed 5 years post-close.
Full analysis, sources & comparables →We expect to benefit from Binax's established reputation in respiratory diagnostics, and we are excited about the potential new product development…
On March 31, 2005, Inverness Medical Innovations completed its acquisition of Binax pursuant to an Agreement and Plan of Merger dated February 8,…
Abbott closed the Alere acquisition at the reduced price of $5.3 billion on October 3, 2017.
Source summaries from our enrichment pipeline; follow links for originals.
All 5 sources with sentiment breakdown →
1.4M Inverness shares + $8.8M cash; rapid diagnostics for infectious disease
$20M Binax FY2004 revenue (USD mm)
Lateral-flow immunochromatographic assays (rapid antigen tests) detect pathogen-specific antigens at the point of care in 15 minutes or less, without instrumentation. Binax NOW had cleared a panel covering Streptococcus pneumoniae urinary antigen, Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 urinary antigen, malaria (P. falciparum / pan-malarial), influenza A/B, RSV, and group A strep — a respiratory-anchored portfolio targeting the ED, urgent care, and physician-office market.
Inverness Medical Innovations (Waltham, MA) signed the merger agreement to acquire Portland, Maine-based Binax on February 8, 2005 — entered in the deal database under the original 2004-12-20 negotiation date — and closed March 31, 2005. Consideration totaled approximately 1.42 million IMI shares plus ~$8.6-8.8 million cash at closing, with up to $11 million additional contingent on five-year product development milestones [SEC 8-K via search; bioworld.com]. Binax CEO Roger Piasio said: 'By leveraging our combined resources and expertise, we expect to be able to improve our ability to deliver significant and innovative new products to point-of-care diagnostic markets' [labmedica.com]. Competing rapid-diagnostic platforms in 2004-2005 included Quidel (QuickVue), BD (Directigen), Meridian Bioscience, and Inverness's own Clearview/Determine lines. Forward-looking: BinaxNOW became the cornerstone of Inverness/Alere's professional diagnostics segment; after Alere's $5.3B sale to Abbott (closed October 3, 2017), the BinaxNOW lateral-flow chassis was repurposed for the BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag Card, which received FDA EUA August 26, 2020 and shipped tens of millions of units during the pandemic — arguably the highest-profile rapid-diagnostic product of the 2020s [Wikipedia: Alere].
| Deal | Year | Value | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. / Binax Inc. (this deal) | 2004 | — | — |
| Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. / Abbott Laboratories Rapid Diagnostics (pregnancy / drug-of-abuse lines) | 2003 | $92M | 71 |
| Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. / Innogenetics Diagnostica y Terapeutica S.A. (IDT) | 2005 | $19M | 45 |
| Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. / Ischemia Technologies Inc. | 2004 | $22M | 33 |
| Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. / Thermo BioStar, Inc. | 2005 | $52M | 31 |
| UCB SA / Celltech Group plc | 2004 | $2.7B | 92 |
| Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical / Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. | 2004 | $7.6B | 84 |