PerkinElmer has announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire BioLegend, a provider of life science antibodies and reagents, for approximately $5.25 billion in a combination of cash and stock, subject to certain adjustments.

BioLegend provides its academic and biopharmaceutical customers with best-in-class antibodies and reagents in high-growth areas such as cytometry, proteogenomics, multiplex assays, recombinant proteins, magnetic cell separation and bioprocessing. The transaction will be the largest in PerkinElmer’s history and is expected to close by the end of the 2021 calendar year, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Privately held BioLegend has more than 700 employees based primarily in the U.S., with estimated 2022 revenues of $380 million. Upon joining PerkinElmer, BioLegend will expand PerkinElmer’s existing life science franchise into new segments, and its state-of-the-art campus in San Diego will become PerkinElmer’s global Center of Excellence (CoE) for research reagent content development for the combined company.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to bring our technologies and innovative cultures together to create seamless solutions to push science and discovery forward. We believe joining our teams presents an incredible opportunity to accelerate discoveries that help life science researchers leverage ever-developing technologies and novel approaches to better understand and fight disease,” said Prahlad Singh, president and CEO of PerkinElmer, commenting on the agreement.

“We are very excited to join the PerkinElmer family. The combination will afford us the opportunity to continue to build on our two-decade foundation of innovative science and scale in new and highly attractive PerkinElmer areas such as clinical diagnostics and food safety testing. The BioLegend team is eager to enter this new chapter with PerkinElmer, furthering our mission of enabling legendary discovery from research to cure,” added Gene Lay, founder, president and CEO of BioLegend.

Strategic alignment of deal structure expected to lead to faster growth and elevated margins

PerkinElmer has fully committed bridge financing from Goldman Sachs Bank USA in place for the cash portion of the agreed upon purchase price. The combination is expected to be accretive to PerkinElmer’s existing revenue growth and margin profile and provide an estimated $0.30 of adjusted earnings per share accretion in the first full year following close and greater than $0.50 in the second year following close. The combined company will generate immediate revenue synergies which are expected to reach $100 million annually by the fifth year following the transaction close and no significant cost synergies are planned.

Conference call and webcast

A webcast of the company discussing its second quarter 2021 results, its outlook for business trends and its acquisition of BioLegend and accompanying slides can be found on the investors section of perkinelmer.com. An audio archive of the conference call that was held July 26, 2021, will be available in that section of the website until August 9, 2021.