Thermo Fisher Acquisition of Qiagen Remains on Track

COVID-19 continues to cast a pall on strategic M&A activity in the diagnostics space with the key players monitoring events before making their moves. However, there are still a few smaller deals being made. Perhaps more significantly, the blockbusters that were announced before the pandemic remain on track. Thermo Fisher Makes Progress on Qiagen Acquisition After last month’s completion of Danaher’s $21.4 billion acquisition of GE’s Biopharma business (For complete analysis, see, LIR, May 8, 2020), the $11.5 billion Thermo Fisher Scientific takeover of Qiagen seems to be heading for closing. A key hurdle was cleared when the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, the German analog to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, approved the deal. On May 18, Thermo Fisher published the official tender offer document. Qiagen shareholders are expected to vote on the deal at their upcoming June 30 general meeting. At least one shareholder is likely to vote NO, namely, common shareholder and investor Milton Pfeiffer, who has brought a lawsuit to stop the acquisition contending that Qiagen directors violated the federal Securities Exchange Act by failing to disclose the necessary information about the deal. Here’s a summary of the key M&A diagnostic deals announced in May 2020: […]