LabCorp Spends $5.6 Billion to Acquire Covance, Challenging Quest Diagnostics for Position as Largest U.S. Diagnostics Company
With clinical laboratory acquisition candidates dwindling in number, Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp) (NYSE: LH) looked outside the medical laboratory industry and agreed to acquire Covance, Inc. (NYSE: CVD), a major player in clinical trials testing, for approximately $6.1 billion in cash and stock.
By taking this action, LabCorp will have bragging rights as the world’s largest laboratory testing company. Upon completion of this transaction, financial analysts point out that the two companies have combined annual revenue of $8.4 billion as of the period ending September 30, 2014. By comparison, annual revenue at Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE: DGX) was $7.1 billion for year ending 2013.
Covance Involved in Clinical Trials
Covance is a contract research company in Princeton, New Jersey, with annual revenues of $2.5 billion and 12,500 employees in more than 60 countries. In February of this year, Covance sold its Covance Genomics lab in Seattle, Washington, to LabCorp, per the company’s press release. Terms of this transaction were not announced. (more…)
