In a key deal announced this week, Castle Biosciences signed a definitive agreement to acquire commercial-stage molecular diagnostics company AltheaDx, which specializes in pharmacogenomics testing services focused on mental health.
In a statement released April 4, Castle’s president and chief executive officer Derek Maetzold said the acquisition will help the company grow its presence and offerings in the mental health space. The deal brings Castle AltheaDx’s IDgenetix® test for anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions.
“The pending acquisition of AltheaDx enables us to offer a testing solution that we believe has the potential to accelerate our impact on patient care in an area of high unmet clinical need, significantly expand our in-market expected estimated US TAM [total addressable market] to approximately $8 billion, and offer incremental value to patients and clinicians over standard of care,” Maetzold said. “Further, this acquisition would enable us to potentially develop a mental health franchise, starting with a test that currently receives Medicare reimbursement for depression.”
Price: $65.0 million in initial consideration to AltheaDx security holders. That amount will be made up of $32.5 million in cash and $32.5 million in Castle common stock. However, depending on achieving certain 2022, 2023, and 2024 performance milestones and expanded Medicare coverage for IDgenetix, Castle could pay up to an additional $75.0 million in cash and common stock.
Status: Expected to close in the second quarter of 2022.
In other key deals revealed over the last week, Fortis Life Sciences announced on March 29 that it is now the exclusive channel partner for AccuGenomics in the US and will hold co-exclusive rights in Europe. Fortis will grow customer access to the company’s SNAQ™-SEQ Internal Standards technology, which the company claims is “the only commercial internal standards for next-generation sequencing.”
Meanwhile, US lab testing giant Labcorp announced March 31 that it has renewed its current 14-year strategic partnership with Dassault Systèmes company Medidata. Under the extended partnership, the two companies will continue to co-develop digital biomarkers and grow the functionality and use of decentralized clinical trials.