Doylestown-based clinical trials tech firm Bioclinica is being acquired by buyout firm Cinven Ltd for reported $1.4 billion

Tom Paine

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Doylestown-based Bioclinica is being acquired by buyout firm Cinven Ltd, it was announced yesterday, in a deal reported to be valued at $1.4 billion, including debt. Cinven is acquiring it from two other buyout firms, Water Street Healthcare Partners and JLL Partners.

Reuter first reported Bioclinica's owners were looking for a buyer in May.

Since being taken private in 2013, Bioclinica has made several acquisitions, including its January acquisition of clinical trial payments specialist Clinverse, which was backed by Edison Partners. Bioclinica is reported to have EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ) in the $100 million range.

Bioclinica was founded in 1990 as Bio-Imaging Technologies and has over 2300 employees, according to its website.

While several firms in the Philly area have one or more of the tools needed for clinical trials, the key to Bioclinica's strategy has been to integrate several of them.

Europe-based Cinven has several other healthcare-related companies in its portfolio.

"This is an excellent opportunity to invest in a leading provider of technology-enabled services to the clinical trial industry with a collection of high growth businesses across the globe," said Alex Leslie, Partner at Cinven, in a statement. John Hubbard will continue as Bioclinica's CEO.

JLL Partners took Bioclinica private in 2013 for $113 million, but not all the difference between that and the reported sale
price is pure profit. One must account for the dollars or equity spent on nine mergers and acquisitions since 2013.