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A $22.4M stock deal for an FDA-cleared cardiac biomarker test that never gained commercial traction and was clinically discredited within a decade. Ischemia Technologies' ACB assay was absent from Alere's later flagship cardiology product lineup, superseded by high-sensitivity troponin testing.
A $22-27M stock deal for an FDA-cleared cardiac biomarker test that never became commercially meaningful and was clinically discredited over the following decade
Full analysis, sources & comparables →Inverness will provide about $22.4 million of its common stock; IMI (AMEX:IMA) closed at $23.05 the day of announcement, down 81 cents.
Ischemia Technologies Incorporated (Denver, Colorado) used these findings to develop the Albumin Cobalt Binding test (ACB) that was approved in 2003 by the…
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~$22.4M Inverness common stock; acute coronary syndrome biomarker (albumin cobalt binding test)
A $22-27M stock deal for an FDA-cleared cardiac biomarker test that never became commercially meaningful and was clinically discredited over the following decade
Assessment window: 15yr post-close.
$180M ITI estimated US market potential (USD mm)
Each year millions of US ED patients present with chest pain, the majority of whom are eventually ruled out for acute coronary syndrome. Troponin elevations occur only after irreversible myocyte injury, leaving a diagnostic gap for early ischemia detection. Ischemia-modified albumin (IMA), measured by the Albumin Cobalt Binding (ACB) assay, was positioned as an adjunctive biomarker that — combined with ECG and troponin — could rule out ACS earlier than troponin alone.
The ACB test received FDA 510(k) clearance in February 2003 as the first IVD biomarker for cardiac ischemia. Ischemia Technologies, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, was acquired by Inverness Medical Innovations on February 17, 2005 for approximately $22.4 million in IMI common stock; IMI shares closed at $23.05 the day of announcement [bioworld.com]. Inverness publicly framed the strategy as continuing 'Ischemia's commercialization strategy, while possibly adding the marker to existing Inverness platforms for further development' [bioworld.com]. Inverness subsidiary Wampole Laboratories then signed a Roche Diagnostics collaboration in July 2005, securing FDA 510(k) clearance December 22, 2005 to run ACB on the Cobas Integra 700 and 800 platforms [biospace.com]. Forward-looking: ACB/IMA never gained traction in clinical guidelines and was eclipsed by high-sensitivity troponin assays (hs-cTnT/hs-cTnI), which entered US practice in the mid-2010s and made early-rule-out at <1 hour standard of care; the IMA franchise quietly faded after Abbott's $5.3B Alere acquisition closed October 3, 2017 [Wikipedia: Alere].
| Deal | Year | Value | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. / Ischemia Technologies Inc. (this deal) | 2004 | $22M | 33 |
| 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. / Thermo BioStar, Inc. | 2005 | $52M | 31 |
| Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. / Binax Inc. | 2004 | — | — |
| UCB SA / Celltech Group plc | 2004 | $2.7B | 92 |
| Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical / Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. | 2004 | $7.6B | 84 |