LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Global Healthcare Opportunities, or GHO Capital Partners LLP, the European specialist investor in healthcare, today announces the sale of Caprion Biosciences (“Caprion”) to Arsenal Capital Partners, a leading specialized private equity firm that invests in middle-market healthcare and specialty industrials companies.
Caprion is a specialized laboratory service business serving pharma and biotech companies for their research and development activities throughout the discovery, pre-clinical and clinical stages of drug development.
Under GHO’s ownership the Company has experienced strong organic and inorganic growth – with revenue tripling since original investment – to become a leader in outsourced lab services for cancer immunotherapy drug trials.
A series of three bolt-on acquisitions – a laboratory from ImmuneHealth in 2016, Primity Bio in 2018 and Serametrix in 2019 – enabled the Company to expand into Europe and Asia, add additional best-in-class technical competencies and significantly grow its capacity. Caprion is now a global leader in its sector, servicing clients across its East & West Coast North American and Belgian laboratories as well as facilities in Australia.
Throughout GHO’s ownership of Caprion, significant investments were made in the operating infrastructure of the business, including but not limited to, laboratory information management systems, business development capabilities, human resources and finance functions. These measures helped to build an organisation capable of delivering consistent year on year growth, while maintaining the highest quality standards.
The Partners at GHO Capital commented:
“GHO’s partnership with Caprion’s management team represents the successful execution of a jointly developed thesis to build a transatlantic leader in the immunotherapy services market. During this period, Caprion has achieved considerable international growth, become a technological leader in its space and continued to drive industry leading service quality standards. With the investments made in recent years, Caprion is well placed to continue on its growth trajectory.”
Ropes & Gray LLP and Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP acted as legal advisors to Caprion. William Blair & Company acted as financial advisor, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Jones Day LLP acted as legal advisors to Arsenal.
ENDS
About Caprion Biosciences
Caprion is the leading provider of specialized flow cytometry immune monitoring and quantitative mass spectrometry proteomics services to the biopharmaceutical industry. With laboratory facilities globally located in Montreal (Quebec, Canada), Fremont (California, USA), Carlsbad (California, USA), Gosselies (Belgium), Guildford (UK) and Sydney (Australia), Caprion has achieved top-tier growth in recent years both organically and through the recent acquisitions of Primity Bio and Serametrix Corporation. For more information: www.caprion.com.
About GHO Capital
Global Healthcare Opportunities, or GHO Capital Partners LLP, is a leading specialist healthcare investment advisor based in London. We apply global capabilities and perspectives to unlock high growth healthcare opportunities in Europe, building market leading businesses of strategic global value. Our proven investment track record reflects the unrivalled depth of our industry expertise and network. We partner with strong management teams to unlock value in a global system that demands the delivery of better, faster, more accessible healthcare. For further information, please visit www.ghocapital.com
About Arsenal Capital Partners
Arsenal is a leading private equity firm that specializes in investments in middle-market specialty industrials and healthcare companies. Since its inception in 2000, Arsenal has raised institutional equity investment funds of $5.3 billion, completed more than 40 platform investments, and achieved 30 realizations. Arsenal invests in industry sectors in which the firm has significant prior knowledge and experience and seeks companies typically in the range of $100 million to $500 million of initial enterprise value. The firm works with management teams to build strategically important companies with leading market positions, high growth, and high value-add. For more information, visit www.arsenalcapital.com.
