Bio-Techne to pay up to $575M for liquid biopsy maker Exosome Diagnostics | Tech News

Bio-Techne, which makes proteins for biomedical and clinical researchers, will pay up to $575 million to acquire liquid biopsy player Exosome Diagnostics, boosting the company’s position in the noninvasive liquid biopsy market.

Under terms of the transaction, which is expected to be completed by early August, Bio-Techne will shell out $250 million in cash upfront and pay out as much as $325 million as certain milestones are reached, the company said. The deal marks Bio-Techne’s 14th acquisition in the past five years.

“ExosomeDx’s technology is a game changer and positions Bio-Techne to be a leader in the rapidly growing noninvasive liquid biopsy market,” Charles Kummeth, Bio-Techne’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “The noninvasive nature of this technology creates a new process for liquid biopsies and is likely to transform medical practice.”

Exosome launched its Prostate Intelliscore (EPI) test in 2016. It is designed to rule out high-grade prostate cancer in patients, sparing them from an invasive biopsy. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screenings return a “relatively high number” of false positives, resulting in men with benign cases of low-grade cancers undergoing uncomfortable biopsies.

With the deal, Bio-Techne is also getting about 200 of Exosome’s filed patents and applications of technology focused on new diagnostics in various pathologies with either difficult or no current diagnostic solutions, such as prostate, bladder, kidney, breast, glioblastoma and other cancers.

Two years ago, Bio-Techne snapped up Advanced Cell Diagnostics in a deal worth up to $325 million for its RNAscope technology, which is an RNA in-situ hybridization platform that allows for the detection of single RNA molecules in single cells.