BioMerieux [EPA:BIM], a French in vitro diagnostics company, is keen to make more acquisitions and has financial headroom of EUR 3bn-EUR 4bn for M&A, CEO Pierre Boulud said.

The EUR 12.9bn market-cap company has a low debt level and is cashflow generating, so it can finance acquisitions relatively easily, Boulud told this news service on the sidelines of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco last week. BioMerieux had EUR 286m in net debt as of 30 June 2024, according to its half-year report.

BioMerieux receives pitches about potential acquisition targets “every day”, which it finds helpful, Boulud said. “We screen the market ourselves too, but we are also happy for ideas”, he said.

The company could make acquisitions in any of its core segments of in vitro diagnostics: clinical microbiology and industrial microbiological control; immunoassays; and molecular biology, e.g. syndromic molecular diagnosis of infectious diseases, he said.

BioMerieux could also acquire more in the software segment, Boulud said. As the company generates data, software solutions help it strengthen the value of the diagnostics, he explained.

BioMerieux acquired two software companies last year: it bought an 84% stake in Canadian clinical decision support system provider LUMED, representing an investment close to EUR 9m; and it acquired Brazilian Neoprospecta, a software company that monitors contamination risks and tracks microorganisms in the food industry, which had 2023 sales of USD 2m (EUR 1.9m).

BioMerieux is also looking at adjacencies, i.e. new segments it could enter, the CEO said, declining to specify.

Last week, bioMerieux announced its acquisition of Norway-based point-of-care immunoassay diagnostics platform SpinChip Diagnostics at a EUR 138m enterprise value. The cashout will amount to approximately EUR 111m, as bioMérieux already owns 20% of the shares of SpinChip after having invested into the company in March 2024.

SpinChip is well adapted to near-patient testing as it can deliver a result from a blood sample within 10 minutes with high sensitivity, as per the announcement. SpinChip is a pre-revenue company, but bioMerieux will launch its products in 2026, and they are expected to generate significant revenues post-2028, according to a bioMerieux company presentation.

Competitors and consolidation

BioMerieux’ three closest competitors are cobas eplex, a rebrand of GenMark Diagnostics which was acquired by Roche [SWX:RO] in 2021; QIAstat-Dx, owned by Qiagen [NYSE:QGEN] [ETR:QIA] since its acquisition of STAT-Dx in 2018; and Luminex, acquired by DiaSorin [MIB:DIA] in 2021, Boulud said in the company presentation.

The fact that its three main competitors have been acquired in the past few years demonstrates that the space is of interest to larger companies, Boulud commented to this news service. The three competitors are significantly smaller than bioMerieux, and the company does not consider itself a takeover target, he said. Institut Merieux, owned by the Merieux family, is the main shareholder with 59%, and the family considers itself a long-term owner, according to Boulud.

BioMerieux has previously been rumoured as a potential merger partner for Qiagen.

Doing such transformative deals is not the primary proposition for bioMerieux, but opportunistically, transformative deals are not impossible, Boulud said.

bioMerieux reported EUR 3.7bn of sales with EUR 610m of CEBIT (contributive operating income before non-recurring items) in 2023, which is 40% and 50% higher, respectively, compared to the pre-COVID-19 year of 2019, according to the company presentation. Its ambition is to generate sales CAGR of 7% over 2024-2028 and increase CEBIT to 20% by 2028, according to the presentation.

The company’s shares trade today at EUR 110.90.