Diagnostic Deals: A Roundup of the Key Mergers, Acquisitions, Alliances, Licenses and Other Strategic Transactions From the Past Month

The end of April through mid-May was another busy period for deal making. Here's a quick overview of activity and key deals.

Mergers & Acquisitions and Asset Sales

Thermo Fisher Scientific's $1.7 billion acquisition of Brammer Bio, a leader in viral vector manufacturing for gene and cell therapies, recently closed. The deal, one of the largest of the year, strengthens Thermo Fisher's presence in the pharma and biotech markets.

Other M&As involve smaller transactions. Activity continues to be global in scope, with ongoing focus in Asia as well as Europe. Italian oncology genetics company Impact Lab Group's acquisition of Toma Advanced Biomedical Assays Services Lab for an undisclosed amount is one such transaction. The deal will create the largest research and genetics laboratory in Italy.

Strategic Alliances

In addition to the 18 new partnerships detailed in the chart below, is the new alliance between U.S.-based diagnostics giant LabCorp and Qiagen, a provider of sample and assay technologies for molecular diagnostics, applied testing, academic, and pharmaceutical research, based in Germany.

LabCorp is now selling Qiagen's new companion diagnostic for bladder cancer, the therascreen fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) mutation analysis, at its specialty cancer labs. The test is designed to assess whether patients with urothelial cancer are eligible for treatment with Johnson & Johnson's newly approved FGFR kinases inhibitor Balversa (erdafitinib).

The therascreen FGFR mutation analysis assay is the first test to be sold through LabCorp's collaboration with Qiagen's lab readiness program, designed to speed patient access to companion diagnostics soon after FDA has approved a new treatment and its associated test.

The arrangement seems like a lucrative move for LabCorp. Qiagen has an exclusive license from Columbia University​ to the therascreen FGFR technology, while LabCorp and its Covance drug development unit have been developing and selling companion diagnostic tests for the past two decades, and efforts in this area of precision medicine have accelerated recently. Bladder cancer is the sixth most common type of cancer in the United States, and urothelial cancer, or transitional cell carcinoma, is the most prevalent form of bladder cancer. There is a high unmet need among patients looking for new treatment options with advanced metastatic bladder cancer, a disease with dire outcomes: The relative five-year survival rate is only 5%.

Here's a summary of key diagnostic deals from late April through the third week of May: