Life sciences investor Novo Holdings has acquired BBI Group, a supplier of products and services to the global diagnostics and life sciences industries, from Exponent for an enterprise value of over £400 million.
Novo Holdings will be the majority shareholder of the company.
Founded in 1986, BBI provides reagents and immunoassay development, lateral flow development, diagnostic manufacturing services, and smartphone reader technologies to a global blue-chip customer base that includes Thermo-Fisher, Merck and Siemens. The company’s market-leading brand, BBI Solutions, provides a range of products, including antibodies, antigens, labels, complementary reagents and point of care tests.
BBI is headquartered in South Wales and employs over 400 employees across its sites in seven countries and four continents.
Johan Hueffer, senior partner at Novo Holdings, said: “We are proud to be the next owners of BBI. Diagnostics is a very attractive space which, with an enhanced global focus on preventative medicine, will play an increasingly important part in improving health outcomes for patients around the world. We see tremendous opportunities for both organic and inorganic growth for the company. Novo Holdings is looking forward to contributing its considerable industry expertise and extensive network in supporting the talented team at BBI.”
Mario Gualano, Group CEO of BBI, added: “We are delighted to be working with Novo Holdings, a team with a strong track record and a shared vision for growth and innovation. In the last five years, we have grown revenues and profitability considerably through investing in our products and services, people, and world-class infrastructure. We now have a fully invested and scalable platform to deliver future growth in a large and fast-growing market.”
Headquartered in Copenhagen, with a presence in San Francisco, Boston, London and Singapore, Novo Holdings is a world-leading life science investor with a focus on creating long-term value. The company has a portfolio of more than 120 life science companies and total assets of €61 billion at the end of 2020. The company is fully owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, one of the world’s largest foundations. Through its investments, Novo Holdings aims to make a growing and positive impact on health, science and society by generating attractive long-term returns on the assets of the Foundation. Since 2010, the Foundation has donated more than €4 billion for projects improve the lives of people and the sustainability of society.
Novo Holdings’ investment in BBI is part of its principal investments strategy targeting investments in well-established life science companies with leading positions in attractive market segments and strong underlying growth drivers.
